Soul's Window
by Yincira
Summary: Rokuna's sixth sense, once a gift, becomes a burden as it keeps evolving. Meanwhile, Zaha isn't too keen on the new role the world seems to demand of him. When this gets coupled with a mission to find the remnants of the Terror Dragon, things go a little haywire.
1. Sleep Now

**· · · · · · ·**

**· Chapter I · Sleep Now ·**

**· · · · · · ·**

On some nights, he laughed louder than on others.

Rokuna had always been one for girly, cozy things. Her pink room, her photo albums, her obsession with fairies, the time she spent on becoming a good artist and her household skills were testament of someone who was the perfect example of the Yamato Nadeshiko (despite some vague claims she was too dominant for that). She had her fairytale prince, love bubbles and all, and they went on adventures and he'd protect her and ...

_A sphere of holy light surrounding Mondo, then his pained screams. The red mask over it._

... things hadn't gone like the fairytales she loved so much. The prince on the white horse who came to rescue the princess from the dragon and took her home to marry her and to have a happy ending together...

_Walls of flesh, goo that she floated in, a womb without exit. The red mask over it._

Nowhere did the fairytale say the prince would lose the white horse and become a catatonic wreck and nowhere did the fairytale say the princess would have to possess the dragon to keep it from killing the prince. To bend that creature against it's masters command, it made her more like the witch.

She frowned at herself and sat up in bed, this wasn't helping her sleep. The dark of night was all around, comfortable and safe. It had never frightened her and it still didn't. Reda had not taken this much of her feeling of safety, but he never fully wanted to leave her mind. It was as if he was living in the corners of her soul, snickering madly as he realized he wouldn't die just because she remembered him and still bore the scars. Rokuna tried to ban him from her mind so eagerly, but at the same time, another side of her warned her against it. Was it wrong to forget?

The image of a burning grave appeared in her mind. The red mask was over that, too, but it's crack showed clearer. She lingered here. Those weren't the fondest memories, but at least about him she no longer had nightmares.

Seechee sighed in her sleep as Rokuna tucked her in a bit better, then she turned over and closed her eyes again.

**· · · · · · ·**

The only sunlight that ever reached the barren land of Kharon came through a hole in the sky above the ruins of Reda's castle. There the sky had once been red and black, but now that its lord was gone, the clouds were gray as they were elsewhere in this sub-dimensional bubble. The thorny bushes had started to bloom from the light and water that came through the holes, but they were bleeding flowers.

A lone range of mountains formed a circle around the ruins, beyond those was a vast white horizon that couldn't possibly fit under the earth without it collapsing. The Forest Angel had explained once that Kharon wasn't really located under the earths at all, Reda had severed it from the demon realm to avoid interference from other the tribal hierarchy. There were plans to reattach Kharon to the overall Makai, however, somehow Kharon did not cooperate.

It turned out Reda had done some extensive adjustments to the dimensional structure of the miniature realm, and one such included several massive labyrinths that served as prisons holds and laboratories for his experiments. Today they were here to clean up one such newly discovered facility.

Mondo landed the plane close to where a small group had gathered. Most of these helpers were part of the group that had linked to the Saint Star Dragon, their closest allies.

The Knights were first greeted there by the Songstress, or rather, Saki as they presently called her. Even though nowadays she was involved with a certain Daisuke, Mondo couldn't keep himself from wooing her. However, Rokuna didn't need to do much about it anymore. Saki now had her own firm, if gentler way to deal with it. Giant roots have many different applications.

"I'm sorry Mondo, can't let you go sparkly on me anymore." she said with an apologetic smile as she called some roots to hold him away.

"Do remember to untie him later, please." said Ichirobei, before noticing someone was damaging the paint job of the plane and hurrying off, always managed to steer clear of drama.

Rokuna glared at Mondo for a moment, who suddenly felt rather happy he was protected by Saki's vines. Several of the bystanders managed a chuckle, but overall the atmosphere was pretty grim. The work they were about to engage in didn't leave much room for anything other than that, really. Most watched the sky, waiting for some other latecomers.

They didn't have to wait long.

At that moment, the sky changed color and the clouds came into motion around the distant hole. From this area near the mountains it was barely visible, but now the formerly dim light shone fiercely and seemed to descend.

The way the colors of the world reacted to Rainbow Spinner's presence was as ever a sight to behold, one that Rokuna never would have enough of. The now blue and aquamarine colored clouds moved along as well, in accordance to a shadow that followed her closely. The colors spread till above their location and there the light gradually merged with the clouds till they were a dusty glow. In a spiral it descended into the crack in the earth, illuminating the way they would soon take. Angel's dust, driven by the wind command of a demon.

Their first task completed, the two guardian angels broke from the magical pillar and approached the group.

Mondo, finally diverted from Saki, wrestled free from the vines. He signaled Pegasus and turned to Rokuna.

"Rokuna-chan, let's go greet them" he said cheerfully. When Rokuna declined his face saddened a bit, but he had his smile back soon enough and hopped on Pegasus alone. Mondo always, always managed a genuinely optimistic face and Rokuna couldn't help feeling her spirit lifted a bit. Just a bit.

"Yo, Zaha, Shiru-san, Ruth!" Mondo shouted energetically as Pegasus circled them. Shiru answered the greeting, Zaha said nothing but smiled and raised his hand with a short motion as acknowledgment.

Mondo noticed the absence of the imp quick enough. "Yaaaaikes!"

A sharp poke in his back made him turn, only to see the snickering imp disappear. "Oh yeah, so mature." Mondo muttered.

The imp reappeared aside of Zaha, who couldn't help but smirk at Mondo's expression, but then his face grew solemn again.

"How it going with the angels?" Mondo asked, spying something was amiss.

Shiru sadly answered :"There are a few that came to help, but we couldn't rouse many of them. Lady Sophiel did promise she'd gather other help next time."

"They're just scared." Zaha said with an unreadable tone. Mondo couldn't guess whether he was angry at them or angry at himself, or angry at all.

The heavenly realm was 'severed' from the Rokumon World just as much as the demon realm, if for other reasons. Only now did some gradually come forward to help the demons, ... little by little proving Reda wrong. Sure enough, as he turned several other dots broke through the clouds, spreading their wings wide in this alien sky. But their number was small.

"I'm sure they'll turn around eventually." Mondo said optimistically. But there was no assured answer to his proclamation, not even from Pegasus.

The little group and their larger tail gathered around the Forest Angel, who had knelt down at a cavity in the ground. The Mon Colle Knights briefly introduced themselves to the new-coming angels, an overly formal but thankfully quick ceremony.

The angel dust meanwhile streamed into the hole from high above, pressing out a sickly scent. The crack seemed like a normal cave leading to an underground area, but in reality it wasn't. Just a few meters wide, it was the air hole of the large labyrinth that the Red Death Angel and his associates had used for experiments. Most of them he had lost interest in as he had started to focus on breaching the Time Realm, but his staff had continued. Some had fled after Reda's defeat, some still ran their places hoping to stay hidden. You could usually tell by the smell.

The true entrance was a magical gateway that had to be activated with a spell, teleporting the entrants to the center of the facility. This gateway would kill any prisoner who was teleported away without a code incited, and this code seemed gone along with Reda. Since they had no time to hack his elaborate magic spells, they did things the old-fashioned way : they would dig out the labyrinth.

The Forest Angel called Saki to stand at her side. It was time.

"Everyone, back off now!" the Earth Dragon buldered. As everyone complied, Saki folded her hands, drawing together the energy of her magic. Invisible, unsensable to all but her, she called forth the Green Wind, the most raw lifeforce of the Rokumon World. Likewise, the Forest Angel evoked the earth that was hers.

Their hymn started gently and with a sad tone. Around the pillar of angel dust, a slight green hue became visible for only a moment, then the ground startled to tremble and roots of all sizes broke it. This was only the tip of the iceberg, many more roots dug deeper and deeper into the desert, loosening the ground : earth and life combining their force. Soon, the giants and the dragon could begin clearing away the rock.

Soon, but not soon enough for the impatient Knights, a spiraling tunnel was made to the area downstairs. They would continue to carefully widen it if larger creatures would have to be brought up, for now, the immediate risk of collapse was over.

"Rokuna-chan, you sure you're gonna be okay?" He always asked this before they entered. She could feel his concern, he had noticed things were different, different ever since the Dread Dragon. Mondo was not one to pressure her into talking however and that she was grateful for.

"Mon-chan, I've done this plenty of times. If we go down there, we'd have to be more worried about you."

He managed a nervous chuckle. "That's true."

"I'll be fine, Mon-chan. Really. You make sure all goes well up here, then you're helping me down there too."

Mondo had a phobia for ghouls and undead things, like Rokuna with toads. Having him get a panic attack in the middle of such a dangerous place wasn't very convenient. They could they merge with a monster like this, as they had done during the first labyrinth mission. Mondo had been given a freak-out by a pack of zombies and impaired the Forest Angel with whom they had merged at the time, rendering her immobile. Help had been around, but if it hadn't been ...

Since then Mondo stayed up with Pegasus, overseeing the make-shift camp and jumping in whenever something broke loose or needed to be subdued. This way, he could steer clear of the things that spooked him, plus Rokuna's sixth sense worked better when not merged anyway.

"See you soon, Mon-chan." With that, she leaped down the cave, landing on a ridge and then deeper into the earth till the angel dust was the only thing that shone on her. Mondo watched after her, then he took to the sky with Pegasus.

Remnants of the hall where the air vent started were still visible between the rubble and roots. Followed the primary flow of angel dust, Rokuna went ahead to the control chamber.

Like Reda's castle had been, the prison was meticulously clean and devoid of any furniture, but the walls were ornate and almost swirly in design. Elegant lines were carved in the white rock, most plant-like, some vaguely skeletal, a mockery of the atrocities that had occurred here.

The air became thicker she went and the humid stench intensified, it signified the presence of many living creatures who had long lacked proper care. It made her quicken her pace.

The control chamber was at the center of the labyrinth, as usual, and hence not hard to find. The subterranean leader of the mission had already arrived and had called forth an elaborate magical map, quite akin to a hologram.

"How far from the first usable hall are we?" Rokuna asked once she entered this chamber.

The Black Tango Cat gracefully turned, her blue eyes focusing on the human girl. "I'd say about seven hundred meters. We'll need some more diggers down here though."

"I'll pass the message." Rokuna offered, though she knew it would not be necessary.

"Already done." said Giselle as she twirled a small crystal ball on her claws.

"Oh, alright. And you've sent someone to the nearest cell blocks too, then?

The cat nodded. "Some of my own people. The residents of the block are fairly weak wind Elementals. Nothing my kin can't handle."

The Black Tango Cat, Giselle, had the rare gift of being able to sense alignments and magical clusters. Along with her intelligence and power, it made her an excellent choice to lead the subterranean mission. Off course, it looked ... awkward, to say the least, to have bulky monsters taking orders from a tiny anthropomorphic cat clad in a tutu. It usually took her about one little 'dance' to prove herself, though.

Right now, Giselle was working on working her way into the magical system that controlled the area, in order to ease opening the doors and seals. The Forest Angel and Saki far above were already breaking away at the root magic of the labyrinth, this allowed her to directly address the problem with seals, though the physical earth itself always remained an obstacle.

At that moment, a flock of dwarfs cluttered through the door and collectively fell down accompanied by a buzz of complaints. Quite uncommon for the practical dwarves, and the reason why followed right after. Zaha appeared in the doorway and waded through them.

"Why did you go in here alone?" he demanded. When Giselle startled a little, he noticed himself and continued in a softer tone.

"The plan's that nobody walks around unguarded, and it's my job-"

"It's not like we're helpless." said Rokuna, feeling a bit offended. "And you're late."

"We had to give some instructions to the angels we brought along. Some of them wanted to start with an _exorcism circle_." came a gentler voice.

Shiru appeared into the door, finding a group of dwarfs only just scrambling onto their feet. Some of them muttered about 'that dark angel' having no self control and not being suitable for the delicate art of underground labor. They had a point actually, but Zaha just happened to the smallest heavy-combat-capable person available who could fit through the passageways.

"Where do we go?" the lead dwarf asked Giselle.

"A moment of patience please. I shall give you a map soon." Giselle half-danced her way across many magical lines that made up said map, information in an unknown language appeared. It didn't take her long.

"Ready to unseal the doors now." she said. With a quick twirl, she handed out miniature crystal balls, each containing a map.

"Here it goes again." Rokuna muttered as she closed her fist around her sphere, ready for her duty as a Mon Colle Knight.

This second stage was the heaviest work. It involved emptying the cells and getting everyone to the surface.

No matter how often they did this, the first cells they opened were always a shock. Those that still lived were starving and ill and those that had died caused the horrid stench. Jackals, goblins, lamias, werewolves, it didn't matter. All sorts of creatures of all alignments were trapped here. The purposes of the experiments were not something anyone liked thinking about, but they often could be guessed from the conditions of the prisoners.

A make-shift first aid hall served to tend to the most life-threatened prisoners. Kikimora used her broom to disinfect everyone, one by one and very carefully not to harm a creature by accident. The angels could apply some basic healing, while the physically stronger theriomorphers and Valkyrie flocked out to deal with larger prisoners. The wild ones weren't brought to the first aid hall if they needed immediate care but to an ante-chamber, where they could be held down to receive healing.

Gradually, the cave leading down became wide and circular, with a spiral path leading upstairs. Green roots supported the structure and a remnant of the dust pillar was still in it's midst, enough to show the clear path. The first true light many saw in ages, this uneven dirt road the manifestation of lost hope.

The work passed in a solemn atmosphere. Sometimes the halls echoed with the screams of a released prisoner who had gone mad, but most victims lacked the strength to make much noise. The hushed whispers in the first aid hall were barely significant, ultimately leaving Saki's song the most steadfast echo.

Rokuna hopped back and forth all over the place, keeping her sixth sense as low as possible to avoid being swarmed by the sea of thoughts and emotions, but alert enough to notice danger. She divided her purpose over escorting prisoners, figuring out some troublesome seals and keeping a check on the roots of Saki. Whenever something threatened to go wrong, she quickly sent a telepathic message to her and the Forest Angel.

Often she would link to Mondo in the sky and he'd always return her greeting as encouragingly as he could, showing her images of what went on up stairs, well, the better side of it anyway. He and Pegasus were quite busy regulating the handling of some the wilder monsters or simpler things like carrying up someone who couldn't walk well. He didn't show her when something nearly ate him or when he had landed in a really embarrassing way. She in turn didn't show him her screw-ups, nor did she let him know she knew what he hid.

Mondo managed and so Rokuna had promised herself again and again she would as well.

A gradual warmth started to hover around the healing hall and the route up. Months, years and even decades of torment were not easily erased, but for those who had lived in despair for that long, each glimpse of kindness meant the world. And that, their saviors had plenty to give.

She moved to pick up the hedgehog, but the frightened critter scurried away into a nearby passage.

Rokuna followed it, at first happy when she didn't find any suffering here. But then she reached the end of the passage, where a long-winded, round corner was. A special seal was in the curve, behind it a locked door. Someone was behind that door.

Rokuna's heart sank. That someone had been there very long, but at the start, she hadn't been alone. Now she was.

Quickly, Rokuna forced her thoughts back to order and looked around. The little hedgehog had hidden in a half-collapsed corner, under one of the roots. With some coaxing, she finally got the animal to come to her. Carefully she picked it up and carried it off. Today she'd have to ask for company again.

She found Shiru tending for a banshee in the healing hall. When the angel saw Rokuna, she waved her over. Rokuna didn't hesitate and held out the hedgehog once she had approached.

"Anything you can do for this little one?"

Shiru reached out to take hold of the animal. Her hands were rough now from the hard work, nevertheless she was perfectly gentle as she caressed the little animal. While not completely, her light could ease some of pain.

"Will you hold onto this one?" she said, turning to the banshee she was knelt down before. A mumbled answer came, along with brown rippled hands.

"Thank you. Someone will soon come and bring you up, your sister is already on her way." She briefly rested her hand on the banshee's shoulder, reassuring her.

"Hey, Shiru-san, could you come with me?" Rokuna then asked. "I found a prisoner that I think I will need some help with."

"Off course." said Shiru.

She led the angel to where she had found the cell. As they went, Rokuna looked up at the angel's face, ever strong and ever repressing her own stress. She'd taken so much responsibility and whenever Rokuna was on the verge of talking to her, this held her back : not wanting to give her even more worry. After all, it wasn't something Shiru could actually _help _with.

Shiru as a rule did not talk about her personal bothers. The smile she put on her face for others was genuine, but still a sort of mask. Rokuna found that they both needed their masks, as long as they didn't make them too thick.

Not that her silence was perfect. It had not escaped the angel that she was being sought out in certain cases, and she'd once asked what was the matter.

_"You have a point when you choose not to worry them now, but that doesn't mean you have to keep entirely silent over it, whatever it is." _

Yet Rokuna's silence over the matter also worried Shiru. She couldn't blame her, it would not be the first time someone close to the Spinner would snap and go on a rampage.

_"I'll talk about it once Kharon is at peace_." Rokuna had promised. "_It's nothing that can't wait till then, really."_

Well, not really. Shiru seemed content with her answer, but it didn't stop her from keeping it in the back of her mind, along with the multitude of other things she wanted to care for.

"Here it is." Rokuna pointed at the door they meant to open and mentally tried to shut it.

Shiru raised a hand and gathered some of the angel dust, then charged it forward. The spell that kept the hall locked quickly vanished.

"I'll handle the door, stand back." Rokuna said.

While she couldn't quickly unlock the door, she had little trouble with the hinges. Just a few well calculated kicks charged with earth magic was all she needed. Yay for sitting through two hours of dwarfs lecturing about the art of handling dirt.

With a loud bang the metal door fell, then slid down a stairs.

They found circular room without bars or any visible sort of restraint, but Rokuna could sense a spell. As the angel dust floated, in a hunched shape became visible in the center. Bast-like skin, a vague semblance of arms. The creature was in hibernation, no wonder Rokuna hadn't immediately sensed her in the sea of emotions.

Once, this had been a dryad.

Yet in response to the dust and Saki's now audible song, the dryad stirred to life. Simultaneously a purple rokumon glowed up all around, the seal that imprisoned the fay. A hollowed face appeared from wavy green hair, revealing deep yet empty eyes.

Rokuna stretched forth her hands, one above the other, gathering magic under her fingertips. She then hit down into the air and the rokumon shimmered, but did not dissolve yet.. Shiru came to stand aside of her and helped, the second time was successful.

The moment she was free, the dryad swept forward, engulfing an unprepared Rokuna. The girl panicked for a second, but quickly noticed no harm came to her. Quite the contrary, a sense of safety emanated from the creature. The form of the dryad differed between hard as a tree and soft as leafs, the only sound being a rustle as she closed her arms around Rokuna.

"It's alright." Rokuna wasn't quite certain whether she spoke to Shiru or to the dryad.

"Don't worry." Almost as if on instinct herself she raised her arms around the dryad's back, feeling strangely comforted despite the sadness that the being carried. Why was she so happy?

"Daughter ... my child is back ... "

She saw memories and feelings of long ago, a green haired child, ... back in innocent days, the face no longer clear but undeniably there. The dryad had looked more humanoid back then too, but now the lack of light and life had broken her.

Rokuna could not get it over her heart to tell the dryad she wasn't her daughter.

"We should bring her closer to Saki." Shiru suggested. "She'll probably get better once she comes into touch with the Green Wind."

Rokuna nodded and tried to pull away, but the dryad desperately clung to her. Shiru gently loosened the creatures' arms, and Rokuna took one of her hands.

"We're going to a brighter place now, okay?" she said, leading the creature out of the cell.

The dryad held on tightly to her hand, floated all around her, constantly whispered "my child, you're back" in her own language. They reached the hall after a walk that seemed ages. Shiru stepped ahead and cleared an area close to the wall and then was called to heal someone. Rokuna brought the dryad there and tried to get her to sit down. But the creature was too taken by joy to even consider moving an inch away from her 'daughter'.

Rokuna always fought all the feelings of the creatures she freed and her own as well, but here and now she could no longer keep her tears in. Some of these feelings were not hers, but another part was.

_Mother?_

Again Rokuna raised her arms around the dryad, this time hugging back for real. Just for a moment it didn't harm to play along, right?

"Rokuna? Everything alright?" Giselle asked as she came by, giving her a confused look.

Rokuna felt like waking up from a distant dream into a dreary morning. She wiped away some involuntary tears.

"Dont't worry." She had said that too many times over the past months, it sounded phony.

"Well, could you help me with that guy over there?" Giselle pointed towards a troll a few meters away, who had his arms around his legs and was slightly swinging back and forth with the empty look on his face so many carried here.

"He just came in and gets scared when we come close, but those wounds really need to get clean."

"Okay." Rokuna softly pushed the dryad away from her, but at that moment the dryad started to see danger. This danger had no solid form, it only existed in her 'daughter' about to go away.

The dryad expanded into a huge, treelike form, defending her 'child' against the 'attackers', hissing in an undefined direction. Giselle took a defensive stance, but Rokuna raise her arms in a halt motion.

"I'll handle this." she whispered. She then strengthened her psychic link to the dryad.

" - _Please let me go, I'm not ... I'm Rokuna, a human. I'm not your daughter._ - "

As she repeated that, the dryad began to understand. Slowly she unwrapped her withered arms, shrinking to her knees and growing even smaller than she'd been before. The bag sized bundle that remained shook quietly, sobbing but unable to cry out.

"But I can find her." Rokuna heard herself say. "Please, focus your mind and show me clearly how she looks." She knelt down before the dryad. Deep green eyes met hollow marine eyes. Slowly the memories from moments ago returned, Rokuna tried to get the vague images of the daughter to match.

"I'm going to look for her now." she promised.

She turned to Giselle.

"I'm going out. If anyone asks where I am, I'm exploring the supposed empty areas." she announced.

"Rokuna, don't get carried away. There are no other beings down there." said the Giselle. "I would have noticed. Wouldn't _you_?"

"Well, we can never know whether there's a seal that represses your sense. It happened before, right?"

"But _you _were still able to find that one. Do you sense anyone now that we did not find?"

The cat was obnoxiously calm and reasonable. Rokuna would've listened if she'd been in a better mood, but this was something that had to be done. She couldn't bear going up there and forgetting this.

"A dryad is a forest elemental, maybe I'm mistaking her daughter for one of the plants of Kharon. That could happen if she's in sleep mode."

The black cat frowned. "You didn't mistake the mother for a plant either."

At that moment, Shiru came by again.

"I'll bring her up now." said the angel. She reached out and carefully guided the dryad along. As she did, she nodded almost invisibly to Ruth, who instantly disappeared.

Rokuna helped the dryad along to the door, and then turned to where she wanted to search first.

Giselle swept her tail about.

"There's nothing out there." She leaped up and landed between Rokuna and the passage she was headed towards.

"We can never be certain." Rokuna rebuked.

"I can't let you do that when I know you're only endangering yourself. I already informed Saki and the Forest Angel the outer areas were emptied, they're no longer working to keep them intact!"

Rokuna narrowed her eyes. "Then inform them again that those halls need to stay intact till I'm back. Or I will."

"No, the area is already too unstable and you can't open an escape rokumon in this labyrinth!"

"I'll just have to be quick then."

"Why are you being so unreasonable today? You can't-" The black cat was broken off mid-sentence by a threatening low voice.

"Nobody is being left behind."

Giselle startled again. Behind her stood Zaha, coldly looking down at the cat for a moment. Then he addressed Rokuna with a simple :"What way do we go?"

Silently thanking Zaha, she walked past Zaha.

"This way."

Rokuna had no idea where to go at all. She opened her map, there was a food storage in the west. Actually she'd already been there and hadn't noticed anything alive, but hey, maybe she had missed a dormant dryad? It was a good place to start.

It wasn't until a little later that it sank in that she now was isolated with who was easily the most obscured and emotionally chaotic soul she knew.

Sometimes Zaha would scrape his fingers across the walls, tearing loose fragments of the ornaments. Seeing many others who had their lives ruined by the same person that had ruined his didn't help him much in letting go of his rage. He had personally killed Reda, but to him it didn't feel like sufficient retribution.

Rokuna appreciated that he went along to protect her, but in all honesty, it made it more difficult for her. Zaha's mind was a far cry from cheerful, she had a hard time blocking the rather depressive feelings he carried.

This dark angel had been the first thing that had truly frightened her in the world of six gates and she hadn't even seen him at that point, the aura that he carried alone had been enough. Now he was one of their closest nakama. So, she tried to act natural whenever she was around him, especially now.

Zaha noticed anyway that she was uneasy in his presence, but misinterpreted it as fear. He always kept a fair distance from her as not to scare her and didn't say much.

Saki's hopeful song still found its way deep into the halls, but the farther they went the weaker the echo became. They went beyond the cells, searching in vain. Sometimes Rokuna would stop and fold her hands to focus, similar to Saki but for an entirely different purpose.

Nothing, and nothing once more.

"Hey ... Zaha?"

"Yeah?"

"We're past the food deposits now."

"Oh ... there really is nothing here then?"

It was fairly dark here as the angel dust hadn't come this far much. It was also much colder and Rokuna shivered slightly. However, they were farther away from the painful center, and she didn't like what she was about to say :

"Let's go back now."

Zaha looked up at the ceiling for a moment and muttered : "We better do that."

As he turned, he noticed she was cold. He hesitated for a moment, then reached for his sword.

"Don't get scared."

Rokuna glared. "Oh come on, as if."

He unsheeted the sword and almost immediately the blade was covered with a black flame. The heat waved in all directions.

"You could have said before that you were cold."

Rokuna didn't make any move to start walking back and just looked at the black fire. The only light coming from it were the red edges that sometimes appeared. Wouldn't it be useful if you could just block out light by replacing it with something like that? To obscure an aura and all it's information and ...

"Rokuna?"

"Eh?" She broke from her musings.

"Is something wrong?"

Something ... _wrong._

She noticed it way too late.

It had no thinking, organized mind, so no premeditation. Creatures that had only been waiting to die before jerked into action as they sensed the presence of demonic fire and the memories this brought forth.

They'd been maybe hundreds of meters away, but quickly made their way into their direction, somehow.

"Zaha, watch out!"

The wall right aside the dark angel started to bubble and melt, tendrils emerged from it and tried to grab him. On reflex he dodged, leaping forward and pulling Rokuna along. He halted at the corner and they looked back.

Rokuna momentarily froze as memories of the Dread Dragon and Oroboros resurfaced, the boiling gray skin and the tentacles from it. However, the form that followed these tendrils looked little like the dragon. Whispering and wailing faces, many limbs extruding from in between them, this was a different sort of nightmare.

"What the heck is that?"

_Not good_. If Zaha after half a century in the demon realm didn't know what it was, how would they know how to fight it or what to expect?

The creatures formed a blob-like form together, working in unison against their perceived enemy. Currently, this was Zaha. Rokuna they weren't interested in, as she lacked the Curse affinity.

"Zaha, they target demons. We can't let them get to the main halls!"

"Got it."

A muddy gap remained in the wall where the creatures had come from, acid had dissolved the stone.

Undying beings, probably Elementals. Lest subjected to perfect annihilation, they endlessly regenerated. No mercy of death for them; they had been here for too long. Decades, a century maybe.. Rokuna's telepathic call did nothing on their wrath. They were poison while they were never meant to be.

The blob rooted itself a short distance above the ground, then it attacked.

But, not in the directing where they expected it to come from. It came from behind, shooting up from the ground and into the walls. They barely heard the swish behind them before the ceilling came down. Zaha picked up Rokuna and charged forward, jumping across the creatures with one foot planted into them to set off. They half-crash-landed, but quickly scrambled to their feet and made it out of the way.

"We need more space." Zaha said.

"There was a hall nearby, let's got there!"

Behind them, the creatures sank into the ground, leaving another gap.

The nearby hall was opened by a few large doors, stairs leading down. It was large enough to give them a chance to fight back, but not large enough for Zaha to fully unleash his black fire, lest he wanted to burn Rokuna along.

"Zaha, I'm going to contact the others. Cover me, please."

She folded her hands and tried to concentrate on sending a warning to someone, anyone. But their attacker would not permit her concentration. Just barely did she manage to jump away as the very ground between her feet started to melt. The sharp, acidic scent from earlier rose from all around them, the creatures were manifesting from the floor now.

Her superhuman agility allowed her to jump up in time, onto a sort of crane close to the walls. Zaha spread his massive wings and took to the air.

"Why didn't you sense those things?" he irritably said.

"Great time for questions! This place is cluttered with negative energy and they were sleeping!" She jumped out of the way of a stray tendril onto another crane.

Below them, the many connected creatures emerged all across the floor, their arms clamping onto everything. Like drowning faces in a bog, their heads were disoriented at first and seemingly gasping for air. But then they collectively focused on the demon above them, sixty or so eyes glaring up.

Zaha managed to ward off their first attack by cutting down the tendrils that shot up, but they simply grew tougher ones. His sword still was afire, he had to be careful however not to set the entire place alight. As the floor became a swampy mess, the walls crumbled and the ceiling only was kept up by what little roots of Saki remained there. The air was getting thicker and humid, almost unbreathable.

Rokuna then noticed the oval form. Amist the heads something was growing, a vaguely yellowish form for as far as the dim light allowed her to see. As the lonely daughter of a mad scientist, Rokuna had spent a fair deal of her life reading books way beyond her age, many of such being biology books and there were a few things that could be. Most didn't fit the scenario and it definitely was for attack, she felt.

"Oh no." she whispered.

"Zaha, it's gonna spit something." She raised her hands above her head, preparing a spell.

The oval sack starting swelling more and more. A new poisonous stench rose up, then thousands of venomous drops fanned in all directions.

Zaha managed to place a wing in front of Rokuna and used his sword to burn a fair deal of the drops in midair, what little got through was caught by his feathers. At that moment, Rokuna hit down her hands in the air before her and then spread her arms, creating a protective shield that blocked the rest of the attack.

"Stay close." she told Zaha.

The acid spray hit the walls around them and started to affect the stone even farther while the creatures were already refilling the sack for another attack.

"Can't you use this shield to block my fire?"

"Your fire _and_ the collapsing earth above me? I don't think so." she said with a noticeable despair in her voice.

"You're going to have to try. I'll keep the fire low."

Neither of them had to say it. This wasn't the first time the group found themselves in a situation where they had had to kill something, a being so insane it couldn't be saved. But time didn't make it easier.

"Alright. I'll weaken the shield for a second so that you can pass through."

In the dim light, her eyes fell on Zaha's leg, with which he had stood on the creatures as he jumped over them when he couldn't fly. The armor had melted away partially, the muck reaching his skin. As a biomechanic being, Zaha could handle more than the simple stone walls, but still ...

"I've done this sort of stuff plenty of times before." he said with a hint of arrogance in his voice, perfectly confident of his ability.

He was always there protecting her and Mondo and everyone else, even in face of Reda. And what could she do?

With a roar Zaha plunged down into the whirl of tendrils, ignoring the acid.

She could link to monsters without a rokumon.

What if she did it to secure their life? Zaha was defending himself, herself and those they might encounter if these monsters got out. How many would get injured or die then? It wasn't really a bad thing if she did this now to avoid further pain, right? There had to be a purpose for the Saint Star's gift, right? She didn't want those creatures to die either. They were victims of Reda, they didn't deserve to die for that. They only attacked because they thought they were being threatened.

Rokuna dismissed calling for help, they wouldn't be here in time. She reached for her ribbon, quickly wrapped it around the crane and herself so she wouldn't fall off in an unexpected shake, then folded her hands once more to concentrate. Linking to many creatures at once was not easy, but she'd done it before within the Saint Star Dragon. She could,_ had to _will it.

Zaha didn't notice immediately the attacks weakened, assumed it was because the monsters finally became affected by his fire. But as tendrils started to spasm and pull away, he backed off and his typical smirk appeared. Now, he only needed to ward off a few and he flew up again to be at Rokuna's height.

"You got through to them." he said, the closest he'd get to giving a compliment. Behind him a soft light shone, the energy Rokuna gathered to support her link reacted with the protection shield. Her form itself was shadowy however, reflecting back no light.

"Not quite." she whispered.

When she opened her eyes, they were red with energy.

"I had to take it a step further."

He said nothing. Rokuna couldn't see his expression clearly and being linked to the many monsters simultaneously blocked out a clear perception of the outside world. Or rather, she couldn't afford such a link right now. This burden was straining on more tha one level, for she had to hurt the monsters to keep them in check.

"Ruth." she then heard.

The imp immediately appeared and when he saw the monsters below and the not to excellent state in which his best friend was, he had a panic attack.

"What happened, what is this?" Then he noticed Rokuna and uncharacteristic red eyes. "And what the heck is she doing?"

"Ruth, calm down, go warn the others. We need some sleeping spells here right now, before she runs out of power." he said urgently.

"Gotcha, but you better explain once I get back." The imp teleported away again.

Zaha descended and sat down at the stairs before the door, trying to think up a way to stop the wound he'd suffered from bleeding before the other arrived and would start to dote over him. He still kept a weary eye on the cracking ceilling and the bulk of creatures before him.

"What are they?" he muttered to himself.

"They are her daughter." came a whisper from Rokuna.

"What?"

"They used the dryad to breed them and used the limbs of the children as a food resource for the prisoners. I can tell now, couldn't before could they're not ... not quite like alive like normal creatures."

Zaha didn't need light to see her crying up there. He tried to think up something to say, but this wasn't like before. With Mondo, he had known exactly what to say to get the kid to stand up again after the will to live had left him. But this wasn't so simple. So he just asked whatever came to mind.

"Can they be healed?"

Rokuna didn't reply to that. With a half-choked voice, she instead said : "Did the Forest Giant and the Wyvern and the Salamander feel like this too when you possessed them, Zaha?"

He took a short breath, then clenched his teeth. Unwelcome memories announced themselves.

"I don't know what you and those things feel right now, but-"

"Never mind."

The ceiling cracked again, several large piece came falling down. The creatures stirred, but before anything else could be done, fire shot into the room from the doorway, sweeping away the debris to the walls.

Whirling down came Giselle, strings of flame around her. For a moment it looked like she intended to burn the malformed tree, but then she noticed Rokuna was still linked to the creatures. She settled for a sleep spell instead.

"I believe we are ready to go up now?" she said softly.

"What about that thing?" asked Ruth, as he shifted into view beside Zaha.

The cat narrowed her eyes. "I've brought help with me, he should be here soon to carry it along. Now, Zaha, I know you detest lying, but do us all a favor. Tell that dryad her child is not down here, if she were to approach you. It's better that way."

Zaha swatted aside another piece of falling rubble.

"You knew?"

"I know this is not the child she looks for. These monsters are not sapient, barely sentient. It's a mutant plant and it would have been best to release it from its suffering."

Zaha was torn between a rising wave of anger and being pulled down by the idea of facing the mother and telling her he almost killed her 'child', cause that'd be what she _would_ hear.

"Zaha, the only reason I am not asking you for a mercy kill on these creatures is that Rokuna is linked to them and the experience of a death is something best kept from her and anyone. Please, go ahead now and have your wounded tended for and not a word about the nature of these creatures."

**· · · · · · ·**

Mondo was at loss. Rokuna sat on a boulder, legs crossed, hands in her lap, practically unresponsive. When Zaha landed nearby, he practically ran over to demand what had happened.

"She possessed them." Zaha said dead simple.

Mondo's eyes grew wide. "What, like ... how?"

"I have no idea how!" the demon snapped.

Mondo remained unaffected by the outburst and softly said : "Can I at least know what happened?"

"We were looking for the daughter of some dryad and found her...them, something. She had a lot of daughters and they were raving mad. Rokuna had to stop them."

"No ... " Mondo had learned enough by now to understand the difference between a regular psychic link between summoner and monster and downright possession. There was no clear separation, but the two forms did exist.

"She didn't need to use a gate for it. I don't understand it either, so ask her instead."

Mondo looked over at the motionless figure a distance away. "She just wanted to save them right?"

"Yeah."

"And you too."

"I was doing fine, they were-"

"Look, I heard Rokuna say that a lot of times now and it obviously isn't true, I can see that. I can also see you're in pretty lousy shape." Mondo objected.

"I've survived far worse." He didn't add those were usually occasions where he could use his full fire power without fear of burning anyone accidentally. Acid usually wasn't included either.

"I still think you should get healing." said Mondo, while he failed at looking commanding.

"Later, once Shiru or the Forest Angel have a hand free. I'm in no mood for those angels now." He made a dismissive motion with his hand.

Mondo followed his gaze, in the distance the angels emerged from the cavity, right behind the last freed prisoners.

"I don't understand why they still won't trust you?"

"Not just me, everyone that is aligned to the Curse element." Zaha smiled bitterly. "And it will stay like that for a long time."

Mondo's optimism finally kicked into gear. "But at least you know we trust you."

"Hm, I'm not so sure." he muttered.

Mondo looked confused. "What? Why would you say that?"

"Something she said down there..."

Mondo frowned. "Don't think like that, Zaha. I can't even count how often you've covered our lives in battle since then. No way she'd still hold that against you! I dunno what she said, but Rokuna's probably just tired right now. Don't feel bad about."

Zaha didn't reply and straightened up, he had spotted something.

"Mondo, how well can you twist around the truth without lying?"

"I dunno, never tried."

"Well try now." he said as he made a quick gesture to the east. A few make-shift rubble walls away the whirling dryad appeared, having escaped her sickbed and looking for answers.

"Just tell her we didn't find anything that looked like her child."

**· · · · · · ·**

Her arms were around him, Mondo could feel her breathing against his neck despite the wind. It was almost as if she'd fallen asleep right then and there, as Pegasus and his two passengers left Kharon.

One by one, many small and large gates closed till the sky of Kharon was only gray again and the area that had been littered with freed prisoners was empty now. The Forest Angel brought everyone to security, for the final part of the mission : finding destinations for the prisoners.

All that remained was one single dark angel, raising his sword high and gathering a tornado of black fire around him. It rained down destruction all around him, deep into the labyrinth. The ground burned under his unrestrained power and another white hell broke to ashes.

Eternally damned, never to be rebuilt.

**· · · · · · ·**


	2. Cursed Central

**· · · · · · ·**

**· Chapter II · Cursed Central ·**

**· · · · · · ·**

Rokuna twisted in her bed, this time not in combat with strange half-dreams about the past, but with the yesterday. Some time after midnight she decided it was enough. She got up again, threw off her pajamas and shifted into some warm clothes.

Daisuke's parents were not happy about being rang out of bed so late at night, or rather, early in the morning.

"Oh dear, now they're coming in the middle of the night to play that stupid game." said the mother in despair, as she recognized Rokuna as one of Daisuke's monster obsessed friends.

Rokuna paid them no heed and barged right in. When the father moved for the phone to call Ichirobei, she pulled the chord from the phone before and smiled at the parents with half-squinted eyes, ghost lights dancing around her as she said :

"Please don't do that, sir, I don't want to worry my father too much."

Daisuke rubbed his eyes as he appeared atop of the stairs. "Rokuna-san?" he said groggily.

"Oh, hello, Daisuke. There's a moderate semi-emergency, for which I need to go to the six gates world."

"Uh?" He startled awake, as he realized she was talking about the other universe in front of his parents.

"Saki left you with a link across the universes, correct? I will need to use it." Rokuna said, still ignoring his parents entirely. The curtsy was no repaid.

"Look, little lady, you can't come over here in the middle of the night to play a game!" the man said with a commanding voice.

"Daisuke, please go prepare the gate?"

The boy was torn between trying to explain this to his parents and listening to Rokuna. The latter won out in the persuasion department when one of her ghost lights came a bit too close for comfort.

He went to his room and returned with a pair of gloves, which were half covered under scribbles and had strange not quite withered flowers attached.

He hesitantly put the items down and muttered the enchanted words, drawing an invisible rokumon with his fingers. Rokuna stretched out a hand and powered the rokumon into a vaguely blazing light.

"Don't worry, mister, misses, you're having a conjoined nightmare induced by your son's inordinate obsession with a card game." she said as the parents drew back in fear.

Tree branches grew from the rokumon and Saki in her elf form popped her head up. "Rokuna?"

"Saki, please do me the favor of readjusting your gate a little? I need to visit the lair of our guardian demon."

**· · · · · · ·**

With little sound she landed on the broken marble floor, the gate above her closed swiftly. Moonlight shone through a stained glass around her, she was in one of the larger halls. A thin layer of foggy warm light seemed to cover everything. Angel dust unlike any other formed a layer across this building.

An abandoned monastery, located high on a mountain. It allowed one to oversee the lands in more than one way, as its purpose had been energy predictions with the stars as time table, a magical "weather station" of sorts. The place was physically inconspicuous, but energetically it was quite distinct so she had little trouble tuning into the location.

Orthros had smelled her soon, but didn't get up, knowing she could be trusted. His tail wagged softly, indicating his mixture between joy at seeing her and submission, as all canines tended to do.

Curled up between the two heads was Shiru, sleeping soundly after a hard day of work. Her healing powers probably had been strained to their limit again, but there was an air of contentment around her. Ruth had somehow found his way into sleeping in her arms, which he'd probably excuse is 'having slipped off the stupid dog's shoulders' in the morning. She spotted Zaha moments later, far beyond the broken wall against which Orthros lay.

Somehow, the dark angel _always _managed to ominously hover before the moon. Rokuna could practically hear an Gothic choir as he stood on the remnants of a collapsed arch at the edge of a pavilion, watching over the world beneath and stubbornly ignoring his not yet fully healed wounds.

Rokuna petted one of Orthros' heads, then she cautiously climbed over the broken wall and with a few jumps made her way to Zaha. He noticed her once she had reached the bottom of the other half of the arch. His eyes went wide at the unexpected visitor, following her curiously as she made her way up the other end of the broken stone. Once there, she sat down opposite of him, her legs dangling over the edge.

"Hi Zaha. Why so surprised to see me? It's not the first time I've been here."

"It's the first time you're here without Mondo, and then at this hour." He couldn't quite shake the expression. "Or is he around too?"

She shook her head. "I came alone. I need to apologize for yesterday."

"What for? Go home and sleep, don't you have a life?" he said, the last part with a tone of humor. He spread his wings and flew off. Typically, he rather left than facing something he didn't want to talk about.

"- _Oh no you don't._ -"

Rokuna took her ribbon, aimed and wrapped it around a random extrusion and swung from the arch, from there on jumping after him till she came to stand nearly before him on the head of a statue. He stopped, but didn't get a chance to speak.

"Zaha, don't you dare! I'm going to apologize whether you like it or not. We can do this here, or the next time we meet in front of lots of people. But I _am _going to say it." She crossed her arms and fully answered a silent staring contest, and won.

"Just keep your voice down." he said while vaguely pointing at the Orthros and those he pillowed. He then looked up, at the dome of the telescope hall. Rokuna followed his gaze and nodded.

With an unpolluted horizon, the sky was much clearer her than in her own world. While it was closer to morning where she had left her world, over at this location in the six gates world it was just evening, the sun barely gone. In a few hours, the already star riddled sky would be even fuller. But just like their own universe, a 'milky way' crossed it, the edge of the galaxy.

Rokuna sat down atop what had been a frame for a telescope, crossing her arms over her knees. Zaha settled on a nearby ridge, half aside of her but facing the lands and not her.

"Okay, spit it out." He found this situation awkward and slightly frightening, she could tell from his aura. It amused her, such a powerful being so afraid of something like this. It wasn't quite who she was used to.

She thought for a moment about how to put it, thought up something, dismissed is, and started with a question. With Zaha being direct was the best thing.

"First, I want to apologize for what I said. Do you think I haven't forgiven you?"

With that soft voice he tended to get when something troubled him, he said :"As if I would ask for that. I haven't even forgiven myself."

"No, I'm sorry because it gave you the wrong idea of why I asked it. It wasn't a rhetoric question or a slip. I just ... it came out wrong at the wrong time. But I need to know, is it normal that I had to hurt them so much to control them?"

Zaha gave himself a mental kick, again he'd been brooding over something that wasn't quite the case, though all Rokuna noticed of this with a slight self-mocking smirk that played around his mouth for a moment. To her he just seemed quite relieved the conversation wasn't going to be about him in particular.

"I'm not exactly an expert in the field of possession, you know."

"Doesn't matter. Anything you can tell me might help."

"Alright. Possession differs from summoner's mind control in that you bring part of your root energy into the being. The dark nature of the Curse allows one to obscure the routes or pathways of the mind, leaving open only the ones that are useful. It can be emotions, the sensation of pain, wrath of calmness, and off course where the orders come from."

"Oh, that sounds like synaptic connections!" Rokuna said, eager at the scientific turn this took. "I know about that. So all it does it lame them? I already suspected something like that was possible and ... so it doesn't require pain at all?"

"You've been there, right? The only pain that occurs is when the possession is lifted, that's all those sainep-, eh, whatever, mental roads being re-energized, it causes an unpleasant flood but nothing further."

"Hm ... is it possible to use it on one's self?"

"What? You can't posses yourself!" he said as if she had just asked for logic to stop existing.

"I was just thinking about blocking out a part of my mind." she muttered.

"Why?"

"Because ... " She realized that the entire way here, she had thought up ways to say it and they all seemed inaccurate.

"I think I'm terrified of my gift. What you describe, that's not what I did. I had to cause pain to persuade them, actually affecting their minds. Even if it's so small, I change their minds. Do I have that right?"

Zaha was feeling more at ease as he realized she really wasn't upset because of him. He leaned back against the dome as he answered : "I didn't do it for the same reasons as you did. You've only saved people with your talent."

"In our world we've got a saying : 'The road to hell is paved with good intentions'."

"Hel? The sister of Jörmungandr and Fenrir? She's kinda out of her mind, but not in a way like that creature we met down there. What are you getting at?"

Solemn atmosphere nor not, Rokuna couldn't keep from snickering, she quickly put a hand on her mouth to keep it from echoing away.

"No, no, not _that _Hel. Hell from our world is a mythical place in the afterlife where the irredeemably wicked are said to suffer as punishment. People consider it a realm governed by evil and that proverb is meant to indicate that an action isn't necessarily right just because the intentions behind it are good."

She paused for a moment, serious again. "The fact is, I've got this talent and there is no denying that I will be forced to use it again in the future. I don't know ...For a moment as I seized control of the Terror Dragon, my mind clashed with that of Reda. That was-agh ... I think you can imagine ... He's very persuasive." Her already soft voice had ebbed away almost entirly as she finished her sentence.

Zaha shifted his position so he could look Rokuna in her face, as if investigating her. His serpent eyes were hard for a moment, then they softened up.

"He can't seep into you like that and you didn't answer him." he affirmed, more as if speaking to himself than her.

"No, but ... but it was almost as if Reda encouraged me. How will I know when I'm crossing the line with this power of mine?"

"He probably just did that because he needed the dragon to be dead anyway. Don't think any further of it, Rokuna. We all were still playing into his hand at that point."

Her question remained without answer, Rokuna figured she should have expected as much. Zaha had stampeded across the line rather than just passed it, ever since his return to himself he was picking up the pieces and finding there was no clear line to begin with.

"I'll keep an eye on you." he suddenly said. His face was averted again and if she hadn't known him well, it would've sounded like a warning or even a threat that she shouldn't do something wrong. But the voice had that soft edge about it again, she recognized his promise.

"Thank you." she whispered with a smile.

A silence fell and Rokuna considered her options. Maybe if she could learn 'possession' as Zaha could do it? Being one of the two children that manifested from the rokumon, she technically should have an affinity to all elements, including the darkness. He had warned her against it, but maybe if she could block out the part of her mind that felt pain then ... she dismissed the thought. He probably was right, it could go quite wrong.

Surprisingly, it was Zaha who eventually broke the silence.

"So, if it's not like what I do, then how does it work? Your talent?"

"Huh? Oh, the sixth sense is something humans can have without magical aid. It is dormant in almost all humans and located in the brain area close by the ears. I guess what happened after I got a magical support for it, my actual sixth sense woke up as well. So now, it is rooted more in my brain that in the rokumon, though I still use magic to enhance the ability."

"I guess that explains how you bypassed Reda's control over the dragon at all, not being rooted in an element ..." he seemed somewhat amazed about that idea.

"Well, the Terror Dragon wasn't sapient. That made it easier. The dragon functioned on a default operation mode, Reda only watched it from the distance. If he had been actively linked when it died he shouldn't have been in any good shape right after we destroyed it."

Zaha seemed to shrug. "He probably broke the contract before it died, there is a spell for that."

"I do wonder why it reappeared though after we burned it, cause if it was without contract it wouldn't teleport back to from where it came and ...wait ..."

Two pairs of eyes widened as the coin dropped. "... unless _Kharon_ holds the contract ... "

Zaha must have followed a similar train of thoughts, for he added : "Reda wouldn't be personally be present when moving single prisoners all the time. It'd have to be something he has full control of, yet is available all the time when he isn't."

"I can't believe it! We should have noticed this before!" Rokuna whispered in disbelief.

"Let's find a new Terror Dragon." Zaha said eagerly.

**· · · · · · ·**

Count Collection clutched his cape between his teeth and was violently shaking 'no' while gnashing about another inevitable defeat. The turbulent twirl motion still kept him in his seat, though that wouldn't last long.

"Count-kun, something's wrong!" Bacchi yelled while clinging to her chair.

"I noticed! We lost again!"

"No! I mean yes, that too, but there's something else! The brats we usually fight have superhuman agility and strength but not enough magical experience to, oh, I dunno, raise the fire pillar that is scorching us right now? Or how about the tornado from last time? Or that earth wall? They aren't supposed to be able to do those things without monsters!"

"Ara, my, they do seem different," said Guuko. "Before we sprinkled off, I saw Mondo-kun's head go all bright red when his girlfriend came close. That is not usual, is it, Leprechaun?"

"Guuko sees it too! I'm telling you, count-kun, those aren't the Mon Colle Knights!"

Waving his hand dismissively (as far as the motion of the Katobi Peacock allowed it), he said :"Nonsense! How dare you imply I wouldn't recognize them! Do you think I'm an idiot?"

There wasn't much more time to argue, not that it'd make a difference, Bacchi had been trying to convince Count Collection of this for the past few days.

The Katobi Peacock exploded in it's familiar pink rose cloud.

Mondo and Rokuna did their typical victory stock pose ... mostly. Rokuna tripped over her own feet and tumbled down. In uncharacteristic panic, Mondo ran after her. As she helped her up, she flayed against him as a swarm of love bubbles surrounded them. In an even intenser bout of being uncharacteristic, Mondo suddenly grew extremely nervous. "Uh... eh...B-Rokuna?" She looked up with huge wet moe eyes. Mondo fainted.

Rokuna curiously watched Mondo slumping to the ground, then shrugged it off. She made a v-sign and then bent down to haul the euphoric Mondo up. "Okay, let's go find that item now, Mondo! I mean, Mon-chan!"

Walking up from being in a very theatrical manner was Ichirobei, who loudly proclaimed :"Yes, Mondo, Rokuna, we MUST now go and OBTAIN the new ITEM OF DARKNESS AND GENERAL UNPLEASANTNESS for we need it because we are ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN it will open the labyrinths because we have concluded that on my BRILLIANT scientific research. NOW LET US GO, for you are the MON COLLE KNIGHTS!"

**· · · · · · ·**

The mighty city of Pandæmonium, the dark haven of many demon species, was shrouded in shadows only lit by the dim lights of thousands of demons that crowded the streets in murmuring while in it's ominous towers were filled with whispers of pacts and battles. This was the final stage for any rising Evil Overlord after having overcome the armies of Light.

In other words, the mighty city of Pandæmonium was located under a fake mountain, had a lively market place and was a political zone for the more peaceful demon tribes to settle their disputes under the eye of justice. All the dictators that survived a war with the angels were sentenced in its courts for disrupting the relative peace of the demon realm.

Despite being the heart of the demon realm, it was not the supreme might. Its location meant it was extremely difficult to conquer, but it did not have enough forces to send out and overthrow anything. Whenever another Dark Lord or Lady rose up the court of the city ignored it, having no other choice. But once they got their hands of said lords or ladies, they were not very nice to them.

Pandæmonium didn't want a war. Nobody wanted to invade Pandæmonium.

Which was more or less what the Knights and their guardian angels were doing right now. Conveniently located at one of the entrance zones, but not too close, a purple circle appeared in the air before an alley.

While the Black Tango Cat drew some curious eyes, nobody really questioned the woman in red that appeared from it; it was a demon gate after all and her erratic behavior was nothing like the humans of this world. Besides, she was accompanied by Giselle, who wouldn't be so stupid to bring a _real _human here. They didn't see the neutral white gate appear at the other side of the purple gate either, nor the people that jumped into the alley from said gate.

A goblin approached to request the identity of the visitors and their purpose, while the 'invaders' _misted _away a moment before the two gates dispersed. They reappeared in another alley, as far as Shiru's _Mist_ spell could take them.

A shiver ran across Rokuna's back as a myriad of subtle energetic impressions came crashing down on her. She pulled her cloak closer around her, a futile gesture to block it out.

"Okay, it's crowded here, be prepared when we're going out. Keep onto your cloaks, big folk." said the imp.

Zaha put a hand on Shiru's seemingly wingless back. Like his own, her wings and his horns were magically hidden in a sort of innerspace cloak, curtsy of Lailai. In Pandæmonium, they couldn't use spells to alter their appearance because they were broken to easily and too eagerly by security.

Mondo took Rokuna's hand and nodded to Ruth.

"We're ready." While they themselves had no wings to hide, the Knights too were cloaked up, as their general look was little of a secret in this world.

Ruth lead them through back alleys and across a few wider streets, the four close on his trail. For what little they could see, the dark city was a strange mixture of various cultures. The district they ended up in even had a somewhat Arabian feel to it, particularly in it's market area.

Their destination was a small shop in a back alley, with candles before the windows and strings with little crystals and wooden figures before the open door to keep the flies out.

"Theta!" Ruth called.

Immediately someone darted from that door : a brown skinned girl with long aquamarine hair in a tail, white puffy pants and a white wrap around her chest with a miniature red jacket over it. On closer inspection, she had pointed ears, but lacked the split eyes that were typical of elves, nor did she share their height.

"Ai, Ruth! And ... friends of Ruth?" She held her hands behind her back and curiously looked at the four faces. Recognition flared up as she looked at the tallest.

"Ai, bad boy!" Zaha glared at that, but she couldn't care less.

"And these people are...?"

"Can we take this inside already?" urged Ruth.

"In trouble again, now are we?" Curiously she turned to the imp, a knowing smile on her lips.

"Why then, you may come in. I shouldn't forfeit hospitality because some people _still _haven't repaid their debts."

They entered, Theta waved a coworker to take care of the current shoppers and led the group to the backside. Said shoppers and the coworker played merry obliviousness, going about their business as if nothing strange had just happened, like that black feather that remained.

For such a little shop, there was a ridiculously large storage hall. Here, Theta bent down to look at the children.

"Ai, cuties!" As she finally stood in the light, Mondo recognized a quite adorable girl. Love bubbles and sparkles appeared around and he reached for her hands. Theta's eyes grew wide in wonder and her hand escaped Mondo's as she lifted it to knock on his head softly.

"How odd, sparkles yet not an automaton?" She looked aside to Rokuna, who was seething at Mondo and knocked on her head too.

"Eh?" It broke Rokuna's concentration. Before either could respond, Theta snatched their cloaks. She tilted her head as she saw the human ears. Standing straight, she looked at Ruth.

"Ai, Ruth, your company grows curiouser and curiouser."

Ruth grinned. "You can say that again. These are the two brats that merged with the Saint Star Dragon."

Theta whistled. "That's certainly unique." She reached forward again, trying to pull off the two band-aids on Mondo's forehead, but he covered it protectively with his heads.

"Hey, have you ever heard of private space?" Rokuna rolled her eyes, quite an ironic statement for Mondo.

"Private space? This entire storage room is private space, but I've never heard it make any sort of sound. Hm."

She seemed to ponder for a moment, then dropped it and turned to Shiru. This time Theta wasn't quick enough, Shiru lowered her cloak down her back, expanding her white wings. Theta whistled again.

"Ai ai, Ruth. Now you're bringing me _real _angels!" she said as if worried, but her face only showed curiosity as she looked over the long feathers.

"Oh, just wait till you hear what we're here for." said the imp gleefully.

Mondo thought that was his cue : "What we're here for is-"

"Uh uh, no no! This is not how we talk!" she said, suddenly offended. She turned a 180 degrees and darted away.

"Did I do something wrong?" said a confused Mondo.

"Just go along with it." said Ruth, as he settled on a nearby perch while kicking off some packages without any apparent worry. "She's got her habits."

They sat down on a small set of stairs. After a little while Theta reappeared from the cabinet, her hands full with several boxes, one between her teeth. She kicked the door shut and started stalling out a whole array of food. Bowls with nuts, dried fruit, flat herbal breads and little bags of thick syrup closed with ribbons of varying colors.

"_Now _we talk." she grinned as she handed out cups.

Mondo jumped right in.

"We need help finding something very important!"

Theta chewed some dried fruit and spat out a pit, while looking at Mondo with blank eyes.

"My, what an undefined goal." she said with a hint of boredom. "Won't you tell me your name first?"

"Uh? Oh yes, sorry." He and Rokuna stood up, bowing slightly.

"I'm Mondo Ohya and a Mon Colle Knight. And this ..."

"Rokuna Hiiragi, I'm the other Mon Colle Knight."

Theta choked on something, then giggled.

"You really do call yourself Monster Collection Knights. How pathetically adorable!"

Mondo looked a bit ashamed, Rokuna's brow dropped. "Well if you don't like it..."

Theta spat out another pit. "And who is misses Fluffywings?"

"Shiru, I am the Rainbow Spinning Angel." said the angel.

"Ooh, the silent defector! Nice catch, big boy! Anyway. I am Theta, just your average little shop girl who knows how to get you things." She spit out another pit.

"Now, for such a curious bunch of people, I do expect you have some sort of entertaining reason to seek me out, not?"

"Have you heard about the situation at Kharon?" said Ruth.

Theta tilted her head again as she thought about it. "Oh, I believe I did hear a rumor amongst the buzz, about the angels and the Saint Star monsters and their humans trying to clean of Reda's junk field."

"Junk field? There's hundreds of living creatures suffering down there!" Rokuna snapped.

Theta apologetically held up her hands, but her eyes were harsh and serious. "Most of the demon realm suffers as we speak, you either learn to see it with humor or you became a withering ball of woe."

At those words, Rokuna cooled down, they were unfortunately true.

"Now what's with Kharon?"

It was no simple thing.

Most monsters upon defeat would teleport back to from hence they'd been summoned, they rarely needed to destroy one. An exception was the Bronze Golem, a case of self defense. However, the resident Water Elemental had assured them however that as long as the factory/temple existed, he would regenerate. Only one other creature had done this : the Terror Dragon.

Said dragon hadn't been alive anymore when Ouroboros used it as host. However, the body had been there despite being previously vaporized. It was very likely the Dragon had been programmed into Kharon in a similar fashion as the Bronze Golem had been programed into the nuclear magic factory. If that was so, just perhaps it was the access key for the labyrinths and the overarching element that tied them together. The key had to be something unique, something only Reda held the final strings to, something that had a connection to the energetic streams of the world so that he wouldn't need to go out personally for every small change in the labyrinths. Such as an elemental master dragon.

Theta however was quick to point out the problem. "If it is programmed into the magical system, why didn't it reappear after death? It was outside of Kharon once Ouroboros incarnated, wasn't it? You destroyed it there, right?"

"The head fell off while Ouroboros incarnated." said Shiru. "We asked Lady Tiamat about it. If the head has somehow been animated again, while the body never officially 'died' but was simply removed from the system, it might be it won't regenerate properly. She says that as long as the dragon somehow exists, it'll do it's purpose in keeping the wilderness winds steady."

"It probably fell down to Kharon, but we never found it there. Somebody must have taken it away. We know it has to be in the demon domain, because the winds haven't changed. Our best shot is this city. That's where you come in." said Ruth.

Theta seemed to contemplate, still chewing her fruit. The Knights waited anxiously for the answer.

"Aren't you gonna eat? It's pretty rude not eating when I put all that before you." she said.

The two children reluctantly ate. The two angels waited. Shiru cast a curious glance at Ruth, as she'd been assured their 'connection' was totally willing to do the job. Ruth silently answered with a shrug; Theta just liked playing the difficult merchant.

Theta decided. "This sounds like a dangerous thing."

Ruth, putting up equal theatrics, said with a solemn voice : "It would appear we must take our business elsewhere then."

"Oh, how regrettable." she said in a mock sad voice.

Then she threw a pit at Ruth while an honest laugh broke over her face. "Off course I'm in! This is a unique event! How would I miss out? Look at all the crazy people I have in my lair! Consider me commissioned."

The imp threw the pit right back, she held up a hand but it hit her head anyway. She still laughed.

Mondo and Rokuna looked at her with a baffled expression. Mondo leaned closer to Rokuna and whispered :"How come no matter where we go, we run into nutballs?"

"She isn't so bad actually." said Rokuna with a smile.

"She's a very cute nutball in any case." he added. Rokuna squinted her eyes and looked sharply at him.

"How long is it going to take?" Zaha asked before anything came of a squabble.

Theta grew serious. "I'll get on it at once."

"And the price?"

"Well, this is the Terror Dragon's head, and the people who want the head include the Black Winged Angel. It's a rather, ... how do I put it... name worthy case. If this gets out, I think you can guess what rumor is going to spread like wildfire. Pandæmonium won't be happy."

"We know." said Shiru. "Name your price."

"Heh, Zaha and Ruth already owe me. They know all about it. The price is that you're involved now too." she said, briefly pointing at Shiru. "And I'll think up something more, surely."

"I already know what to expect." Shiru said, not particularly worried.

Theta nodded, got up and darted away. Ruth followed her, he'd make sure about the details of the contract.

Mondo turned to Zaha : "What just happened?"

"We agreed to service down-payment. She'll be sure to make it irritating."

"I don't get it, we're not supposed to pay money?"

Zaha explained : "This city has no money. They exchange value of items or service through a rokumon-ruled count system, as to avoid theft. Works pretty well, and is near impossible to crack. In the case of Ruth and me, it means we ... run errands, which varies between killing things and simply intimidating them. Considering what we're doing now, I can count on continuing that for another hundred years or so."

Theta and Ruth appeared shortly later, rapidly discussing something together before the imp disappeared into thin air. Zaha and Shiru were directed to a back chamber through a hidden door, they could not go around too much due to risk of exposure. When Mondo wanted to follow, Theta held him back.

"Nope, not you!"

"Then where are we supposed to go?"

Theta clapped her hands together. "Shopping!"

"Shopping?"

"You're just screaming _'Look at us being inconspicuous!' _with those outfits, cuties. You need to blend in by standing out a little in this city, everyone looks weird here. Though I must commend you for being smart enough to not use a shape-shifting spell here. The guard would have smelled that out right away. From now on, you are my cousins Moun and Ririta. Ruth is out making an appointment. Till then, I'll give you a tour and we'll have some fun, won't we?"

"How can we go out and have fun when we know there's people dying right now?" There was a slight frown on Mondo's face.

"You could eat and sleep before you knew there was a way to hack that system, right? Well, as of now, we have no information. Till we do, don't make yourself miserable. The best you can do is get you accustomed to the city."

**· · · · · · ·**

In a herbal air, stands were at the sides of all wide streets. While the wares and that most of the merchants hardly looked human, it was very much like markets would be in their own world. The overload of auras was a bit of a strain for Rokuna, but the general pleasant atmosphere of the place made up for that, this was a different world from the labyrinths.

A fair amount of merchants recognized Theta and whatever eye was suspicious of the small humanoids cleared when they saw her. The midget faux-elf seemed to be quite well known here, though not known at all as an excellent liar. When she hung up a story about her relatives visiting 'under the law', no one questioned it.

As Theta chatted with some people, Mondo and Rokuna went on their own down the market road. They had no idea about how to pay, though they quickly figured out why the system Zaha had described was necessary. With so many different cultures passing through, it was difficult to maintain the hundreds of currencies. The payment system almost worked like a computer of sorts, counting value and bids in alien letters that lined the rokumons employed.

Eventually they found a stand that sold clothes. Well, stand was an understatement, as the tent was huge, filled with racks of several meters high; the merchant that owned it was about five meters worth of troll.

Rokuna wasted no time delving into the racks to see whether there was anything suitable. Mondo just stood by, having no clue where to start. The scribbles on the boards that marked the areas and prices were unintelligible to him.

"Say, Rokuna-chan, can you read this?" He realized his mistake right away, he was supposed to call Rokuna by a fake name.

"Don't sneeze on my wares!" bellowed the merchant. Mondo breathed a sigh of relief that the name hadn't been recognized, then wondered.

"Sneeze?"

Theta suddenly stood at his side. "Ai, don't worry Uhkad, he's not carrying anything contagious. Moun, lost your handkerchief again?'

His expression was nothing short of confusion.

"Do you sell any, by any chance?" Theta addressed the merchant, paying Mondo no more heed. Instead she whispered to the troll :"My cousin here is a little slow, they sent him here so I'd teach him stuff. You know how that goes, family and all." The merchant smiled emphatically and chatted away with Theta over the horrid visit of his grandmother a few days ago.

"-Ai, quit talking Japwaanies or whatever it is!-" Rokuna startled as she 'heard' Theta say it. She was a little surprised that Theta knew how to touch onto her talent consciously.

"- What's wrong with Japanese? -" she asked in return.

"- They'll hear it. -"

Rokuna then remembered something her father had explained her.

"- Our mistake! -" she answered and pulled Mondo along. Linking to him, she said : "-Mon-chan, she means we can't talk in a Japanese way anymore. Dad said something about that a while ago. In this world, magic strongly relies on sound, we hear everything translated into our language. It works the other way around too, but I think not for language specific traits such as the name suffixes in Japanese. -" The sneeze the merchant had heard was 'chan'.

"- I guess I can handle that. But not these clothes, I can't even tell which is for what gender. -" he said with a proverbial sweat drop.

"- I can't either.-" Rokuna admitted a little nervous as well.

They ended up most of the time in the tent trying to find things that were their size, spent ten minutes trying to get a shirt off a rack without using their super-human agility only to have Theta tell them they should definitely use whatever ability made them look not human, Rokuna puzzled over color matches and Mondo just wanted to get on with it. Unfortunately for him, Theta dragged them to four more tents, saying they should do this to look natural.

Mondo and Rokuna each ended up with a moderate package to carry. Theta also got them headbands to cover their ears, though Mondo couldn't wear it yet; she had also bought dye to color his red bangs black later. The world of the rokumon perhaps had all the colors of the rainbow for hair, dual colored hair was still rare.

Theta visited another store friend to ask for an extra food delivery since she had guests, and the insectoid lady who ran the mall kindly handed Mondo and Rokuna some snacks to eat. Then they proceeded with a small tour.

The capital of Makai was an impressive structure under a dome of brown stone, effectively creating a city without sky. What they had mistaken for thick brown clouds were actually towers and houses hanging for the 'ceiling'. The city consisted of two immense stone tables aligned to each other, one hanging above the other. At the horizon all around was only darkness. A few lakes here and there broke the pattern of buildings and towers reached out everywhere above the roofs, holding dim fires to light the flying space. At the very center of the two tables was a singular pillar that connected the two halves.

"That's where the actual Pandæmonium lives, deep within it." said Theta as she noticed what drew their attention. "He is the core channel of all dark energy and our guardian against those that seek dominion of the demon realm. If it wasn't for lord Pandæmonium, this city would be involved in those dreadful wars as well."

Rokuna's mental eye reached closer, carefully, to the pillar. She immediately pulled back, not understanding the feeling that emanated from it. Like sorrow, yet in a purposeful way. She could make no sense of it.

Mondo meanwhile couldn't help but ask :"If he is against the wars, why doesn't he do anything about them?"

"How would he? This city is his only power, he cannot pass beyond it. Within the perimeter of the city, nothing can overthrow the walls, but outside, he has little influence. If we ... "

Theta shook her head, as if waking herself. Her cheerful tone returned as she said : "Never mind that. Let's go sit somewhere to eat! There's a nice quiet spot down at the canal, come along!"

Rokuna cast a last glance at the pillar, then the two children followed. After they had sat for a moment and Theta had explained some further rules of behavior for the city, a familiar song reached their ears, accompanied by inhuman screeching.

Mondo and Rokuna looked up to see Giselle twirl past at the other side of the broad canal, accompanied by Namiko who was way too occupied with the 'shopping spree with boyfriend' scenario to notice the children. Somehow, either she or Giselle had gotten their hands on an incubus, who was now being dragged all over the place to carry whatever Namiko bought.

"Namiko-sensei?" Mondo said in surprise.

Rokuna had seen her teacher being engulfed in reality-escapade melodramatics often, but now that she had somehow found a 'boyfriend', she topped it all. The poor guy had no idea what he was getting himself into. They could hear her ecstatic squees all the way at the other side of the broad canal. The estrogen rush soon passed by, leaving some very confused citizens in it's wake.

Theta was mesmerized. "Oooh, what a delightfully crazy person. And she is a friend of yours? May I be introduced?"

"Yeah, that's Namiko Gokumare." said Mondo. "She's our teacher, she found out recently she is aligned to the Curse element. You can't meet her now though, she doesn't know we're here."

"Since she's aligned to the Curse element she would have an excuse to come here, we decided to use her as a diversion while we popped up behind her rokumon. We always try to ditch her somewhere where we aren't since she's rather ... clingy. Everyone knows that so putting her here is like saying that we're _not _here." said Rokuna. "We also sent out a decoy mission to find the new Curse Item, two friends are masquerading as us. Hopefully this creates the idea that we believe the we're think we need that item to unlock the labyrinths."

"Why such an obvious ruse?"

"So far we've been unable to catch the scientists that abandoned the labyrinths, but if we hacked the system we would learn their names. They won't want that to happen. We don't know when we'll find the head, if at all, but if another labyrinth is unearthed before we return and we're not there helping as we usually do, they're going to be suspicious of our absence. So we're a step ahead with steering attention away."

"In theory that would work. In practicality, however ..."

"What's wrong with it?" asked Mondo.

"There are only two types of people who really aren't welcome in Pandæmonium. Angels and humans."

"I can understand the angels, but why not humans?"

"Because of the knights of the Tau of Tammuz." Theta explained. "If the angels weren't making war on the demons, they were."

"I'm sure Namiko-sensei will be fine. She conquered one of Reda's armies all on her own, she's pretty powerful. Plus, she has Giselle with her, who can handle a lot as well." said Mondo optimistically.

"Ai, maybe." Theta shrugged. "She at least doesn't act like a zealot. Who knows. Say, green cutie, why so quiet now?"

"Eh? Oh, I was just trying to contact Giselle to see whether everything was alright." She unfolded her hands as she said it. Truth was in this crowd and with the sleep deprivation of the last few days, she did not have the concentration to relay a telepathic message, only able to get a rough check on emotions. She wanted to see what the crowds felt about Namiko.

Some were just amused by the woman's antics, others distrustful and some even had had a desire to harm her. Mondo was probably right about her being fine though, but it made Rokuna think of something else. It reminded her of Earth.

In fact, she also noticed something else ... some sort of anger, but from a different source. Now she knew, she couldn't not feel it anymore. A crowd and so much pain at its center ... she stood up and ran.

"Ro-" Theta clasped her hand before Mondo's mouth before he could call her name.

A few streets away two merchants and a traveling trader had gotten into a dispute. Rokuna slipped through the crowd as quick as she could, finding herself near the center soon.

Above the arguing of a minotaur and a lizardman was the howling of two rhino-like creatures, one wounded, the other barely being restrained by a bunch of goblins. Before she could get closer the crowds moved apart, pushing her aside along. In their midst appeared the city's equivalent of the police, which consisted of a patrol of dark elves mounted on skeletal horses.

The two arguers stopped as they recognized the elves. Though either of them towered over even the skeletal horses, they were aware these deceptively fragile elves shouldn't be mocked with.

"What is this racket about?" yelled the leader of the dark elves as he dismounted. Some of the bystanders started shouting, claims contradicting.

"Quiet!" yelled the elf. "I didn't ask you people! Who owns this establishment?"

The anthropomorphic reptilian stepped forth. "That would be me."

"What's your story?"

"This guy here startled my wares, look at the mess! I can't sell that Monoceros anymore."

"Why would I do that when I've just bought them!"

"Bought? We weren't agreeing on the price, so he got angry and startled the animals. Probably wanted to make'em worth less. Talk about overkill." said the reptilian.

The elf held up a hand and turned to the minotaur. "And your version?"

"I already bought the animals, he screwed up when untying them and one wounded the other when it got loose. He refused to give me a refund for his mistake!"

The elf sighed audibly at hearing yet another tale of this sort, then walked over to look at the wounded Monoceros. Inspecting the wrecked area and broken poles, he found that the claim the animals had been startled at least held true. But this didn't give much indication to who had done it and how.

Suddenly, the lizardman said : "Maybe cause you were angry I denied your bare cash, no?"

The minotaur looked confused for a moment, then growled, dipping his head in anger. "Now you're pushing it! I never-" He was given no chance to finish.

"He tried to cheat with paying bare cash!" accused the reptilian as he pointed at a bag on the ground. It was located a few meters away, half under the rubble of the collapsed animal hold. "When I didn't accept, he kicked away the evidence and caused the accident to divert attention away!"

Another of the elves dismounted and picked up the bag.

"You were trying to cheat on the system?" she said as she looked up, the bag open in her hand. Inside were a bunch of bitter smelling roots, which they recognized as valuable medicine from the Earth Realm.

The minotaur looked confused again. "That is mine, but I didn't use it to haggle anything!"

The elves showed no inclination to believe him however, moving in for arrest.

"Rokuna, is that true?" She looked aside, finding Mondo, who had only now managed to squeeze his way through the crowd to her.

"Yes, I think so." she said. "The lizardman didn't immediately accuse the buyer of cheating and his aura is way too calm for this situation." She folded her hands and tried to get more details through mind-reading, but someone bumped into her. Mondo barely caught her by the arm before she fell.

"Then we should do something about it." Instinctively he reached for his punch-weapon in case he needed to defend, only to realize he hadn't taken it along. Not that this would hold him back. Something else would, however. Mondo and Rokuna were about to push their way through the crowd when Theta grabbed them by the shoulders.

"- Don't betray yourself! -" Rokuna again 'heard' her say.

"But the merchant is doing something foul, we have to-"

Theta's hand stayed firmly on their shoulders, almost digging her nails into their skin.

"Ai, this is normal. You can't stop every injustice." she said sharply.

"We can stop this!" protested Mondo.

"Yes, we just need to find out how that bag got onto the scene." said Rokuna.

"No. We can't get involved." she whispered sharply.

They were dragged away further and further by Theta, who was surprisingly much stronger than she appeared and had an answer for any attempt to wrestle free.

They only stopped at the corner of a quiet street. Rokuna didn't even need her empathic sense to tell her this was nothing that fell easy for Theta. To stand by without being able to change anything. Theta had a point, if they had gone there now, they probably would've been exposed.

"It's not fair." Rokuna whispered.

Mondo reached out and offered to carry the package that Theta held, she didn't respond immediately till he tugged at the paper. In the same motion as letting go of it she walked away.

They returned home quietly, and Theta only broke the silence once she had closed the door behind her.

"Ai ai, I didn't act very nicely back there. Did I hurt you?" she asked, her voice gentler now.

They shook their heads. "We're fine."

"Does this sort of thing happen in your world?" she asked. "Or is only the demon realm like this?"

"It does. All the time. We call it the 'SEP field' in our world. Someone Else's Problem." said Rokuna sadly.

"But if we never do anything ... it's not fair."

**· · · · · · ·**

Behind the hidden door was Theta's little home, or rather, one of several homes. A small place with misaligned floors; small doors led to large rooms and large doors that hardly were worth opening. Most rooms served no intelligible purpose, being decorated with curiosities by various themes. It might have been a museum, if not for the lack of mobility.

Zaha and Shiru kept their cloaks on here, tall as they already were they had a hard time moving around here without wings. Ruth had returned and was discussing something with the two of them when Theta, Mondo and Rokuna entered.

Theta had returned to her happy mode, announced that extra food would arrive and made her way to one of the rooms, which upon closer inspection turned out to be a kitchen. Mondo and Rokuna put down the packages they carried on what was presumed to be a table. That, or a malformed statue of an tree golem.

"Did something happen?" Shiru asked the moment she saw their faces.

"We ran into a merchant who was framing a buyer, the buyer got arrested. I think I could have explained how the frame worked, but if we did, we would've been discovered." said Rokuna regretfully.

"You can't avert everything." Shiru said.

"But we're the Mon Colle Knights, we're supposed to take care of this world." Mondo objected.

"I know." Shiru rested her hands on their heads in a comforting gesture and knelt down.

"There's something else we can change though. Mondo, Rokuna, will you come along with me tomorrow?"

"Sure, but where are we going?"

"I would like to introduce you to a good friend of mine."

"You have friends _here_?"

"Well, I haven't been in Pandæmonium before, we met elsewhere. But I have his address and he is at home presently. He will be able to help us with more than a few things in fact."

"When is tomorrow? Can't we go now?'

Shiru shook her head once. "You need to rest. You've been up and about for days without proper pause for too long now. Please sleep."

Mondo rubbed his eyes. "I'm not sleepy."

Less than 10 minutes later, they were gone and away in corner on giant pillow.

**· · · · · · ·**

Half an hour later, Theta joined the angels and the imp in their designated quarter, carrying a more elaborate display of her ritual food service.

"Ai folks." she said as she sat down on a bean bag. "Now we talk about the full scope of what you've gotten me into."

"What exactly do you want to know?"

"How big is the risk this deal is going to come back to haunt me?"

"We'll be out of here once we have the head." Zaha said simply.

"Last time I checked my library, the Terror Dragon's head was large enough for you to stand in the mouth. It's not gonna be easy moving that, if it's in Pandæmonium at all."

"If it is, someone got it in without notice, right?" said Shiru. "Though I suppose it would be easier if it wasn't here."

Ruth grinned. "Things don't like to go easy in the demon domain."

He then addressed Theta. "These folks here have connections, lots of connections, even with the angels as you know. You'll be compensated as you need and if it goes wrong, we know places to go where this city can't follow you."

Theta shook her head. "Ai ai, Ruth, you know me. I never left these lands, and I never intend to do so. Now ... "

She drew some figures on the table with her finger and juice. It formed a rokumon.

"...let's say you need a _living _dragon, who's going to take care of it?"

Theta tapped her fingers on the table. "You know what it's gonna look like if it comes out you're after the Terror Dragon. They know the Black Winged Angel has connections with me. What do I answer them if they ask me about it?" As a citizens of Pandæmonium, she was obliged to stay neutral when it came to the affairs of the other worlds, especially those of the angels.

"I'm not trying to get the dragon for myself." Zaha said, somewhat irritably.

"Someone's gonna have to take responsibility of it though." Ruth remarked.

A silence fell, Zaha was in no mood to think about this, to him all that mattered was that the labyrinths were unsealed, an opinion Shiru shared with him. Ruth went along with the flow, though he had a pretty good idea what the outcome of this mission might mean and it wasn't something he liked to dwell on, for different reasons than the others.

"You can still pull out of it, we'll find another way." Zaha offered eventually. Just maybe, he didn't like the idea very much of dragging down someone else.

Theta didn't reply immediately. Like before she seemed to consider, but this time she thought about it for real. She then said firmly : "No. I have been hired, I will deliver."

**· · · · · · ·**

**Author's Note : **_Utahime/Saki going to the other world in human disguise is from the Mon Colle Kids manga, Daisuke is her pseudo-boyfriend from said manga, and she attends the same school as Mondo and Rokuna do. They also briefly appear in the movie._

_Namiko Gokumore is indeed officially a 'monster', her alignment can be seen for about a second on the fake card that appears so now and then : orange, which is the card color of the curse element, unlike the purple it is designated by in the anime. Her affinity appears to be fire._


	3. Obire Mortem

**· · · · · · ·**

**· Chapter III · Obire Mortem ·**

**· · · · · · ·**

The farthest door in Theta's house — or museum — opened onto a small garden with a pool in the middle. Here it was dark except for a soft glow coming from the water, which reflected into the foliage by transparent lotus flowers. Far above was the brown-gray 'sky', actually an empty pavilion barely visible through the small trees that grew against the wall. A glass dome separated the garden from the always falling dust.

It was Theta's little piece of paradise amidst the industry of Pandæmonium. It struck Shiru as sad that in all of the demon realm, only Pandæmonium could safely hold such sanctuaries. Her fingers played across the water and sometimes went over the lotus flowers as her thoughts went where they always did, would this ever change for the better?

"Why aren't you sleeping?' She looked up to see Zaha hunched in the door.

"I'm just a little uneasy, there is very little light energy here for me to tap into. But I'll get used to it soon enough."

He smiled ruefully. "Pandæmonium ... the last place I ever thought about taking you."

"Yet here we are. Will you join me, if you don't intend on sleeping either?"

After a moment's hesitation, he stepped into the small garden and sat down at a tree. She had a little sad amusement from how much that simple action seemed to relax him. Thanks to the cloak that hid his wings he could sit like that where normally his heavy wings did not permit it. The last time he would've done that probably had been decades ago, during the war.

"Why does that guy want me to come along as well?"

"I'm sure that if Ruth knew that, he would have told you right away."

She read some mild malcontent from his face, was about to say something encouraging, but then she saw the wound on his lower leg. The broken armor was magically 'regrowing' itself, but plating wasn't as complex as tissue and she could see his leg was still in bad shape.

"Zaha, why didn't you ask one of the angels to heal the remnant of the wounds when we came by Valhalla?"

He looked away and crossed his legs so she could no longer look at the damage.

"Zaha, you don't have to punish yourself."

"Then why didn't_ you_ ask them to help you recharge?"

"Recharging one's energy isn't so quick and ..." But that wasn't the point and they both knew it. He didn't want to pass the doubting eyes, no matter how well they tried to understand what he was. In essence, the same went for Shiru, for very similar reasons.

She went to sit aside of him, but they spoke no more before she fell asleep.

**· · · · · · ·**

The walls were lined with bookshelves, books were on the tables and books were stacked on the floor, books everywhere. Honey colored light shed through many windows, revealing that despite the disorder, the room was carefully kept dust free. Here and there stood little basins with fire under them, spreading the vapor of scented water throughout the room.

Rokuna curiously looked over the books, raising an eyebrow as some of the languages seemed to hold somewhat Earth-like traits, mostly Latin, Sanskrit and Hebrew. But Mondo's attention was drawn to a nearby door that stood open a few inches. A cold draft and distant footsteps came from it.

Suddenly this door swung open and from it appeared a skull-like face. Grey robed arms revealed bone-like fingers, three small skulls around an elaborate necklace clicked against each other. Mondo yelped. It wasn't so much the bones as the atmosphere under which the creature arrived : from the shadows, looming and speaking a strange word like cracked paper. The crashed into a stack of books as he stumbled backwards.

"You be expected to fix that," said the skeletal creature.

"Arash!" Shiru walked over and bowed as a greeting, a gesture which he returned equally. Now in the full light, he looked less frightening, alive but far from life-like.

"By the living of my soul, I hope you have flown fair, messenger of light."

"And I am glad to see you in good health, scholar of twilight."

Rokuna wondered how in the world Shiru could determine health on this person, but then Mondo's oncoming panic attack claimed her attention.

"Mon-chan, that's not really a zombie. Come on, sit down." She directed him away from the collapsed stack to a nearby bench.

"You sure?" he said with a squeaky voice, his eyes never leaving their host.

"Yeah, definitely not quite a zombie."

"Not quite?"

Shiru smiled at the little spectacle and then addressed the group as a whole.

"Mondo, Rokuna, Zaha, this is my friend Arash. I met him when he recruited my help in a case with ill born homunculi. He learned me many useful things, as I hope he will learn you as well."

"Bet he will. I took a look through these books when I dropped by yesterday, some pretty nasty magic he's got here," said Ruth, a hint of both mischief and awe in his voice. "Miss Fluffywings sure takes to interesting company."

Arash bowed at them too. "Be welcome to my factory. Do pardon my messy reception chamber, I generally have no guests and always seem to be short of room."

"It's okay." said Rokuna merrily. "This is much better than my father's laboratory. Right, Mon-chan?"

"Ri-ight."

Arash chuckled deep inside, he didn't often encounter spooked people in this city. His eyes were hidden deep in their sockets and were barely visible, but he could see the world in sharper detail than many others. The two children before him had carried the weight of that world, yet never fully realized what it meant. The quiet yet hopeful angel aside of him had eyes as sharp as his, while the demon that kept his distance seemed to be closed in by himself and then there was the imp that pretended he didn't care about anything. All so very alive in so very different ways.

He invited them to follow, quietly thrilled at the colorful company. Rokuna felt his honest curiosity, and it placed her at ease. Especially since he seemed to know about her, and he did not object to her sight.

Through the building, various more morbid creatures wandered, each quietly nodding to Arash before going about their way. Even though the two angels had their wings exposed since entering the complex, nobody seemed surprised by it, nor did they respond to the Mon Colle Knights.

The rooms were all packed with shelves of books, herbs and others items, countless things that found their way through thrift stores like those of Theta into ex-libraries such as these. There were basins with the vaporizing water everywhere, but no chairs to be seen.

Finally they found themselves into a sort of arena. At the ceiling was a fierce lamp which shed light on a mozaic of tiles of different colors and full of magic. Like many buildings in this city, the whole was built under a round dome.

Here, Arash addressed the two children : "From what I understand, you seek to bring great change to the world of six gates and your own. I do not know what kind of worlds you wish to create, nor what you _will_ create through or regardless of your dreams. I do know you are vital to my universe. Therefore, I wish to share my knowledge with you."

Rokuna gave a soft pull at Mondo's arm, along with the very unzombie-like words this got Mondo out of his scare.

"Oh, yeah, we want to create a permanent bridge between the two worlds, for the best of both worlds. But before that, this worlds needs to be at peace. Our world already is so chaotic, it won't get better if this world is as well." Now that he starting to come at ease, Mondo's energetic spirit peeked through again, tinting his voice full of optimism. "For that reason, we're here to find what remains of the Terror Dragon. Shiru-san said you can help us somehow?"

Arash nodded. "If the head is still intact or even alive, I may be of advice in revitalizing the creature. Elsewise, I may be able to clone to creature. The latter process would take longer however, so hope it is the former."

The two children blinked in confusion. "Revitalize it?"

"A biomechanic creature like the Terror Dragon may well have a brain that does not deteriorate within hours. This allows for true regeneration."

"Oh, wonderful!"

"However, after this occurs, the animal will be confused and will need constant supervision, even after being returned to Kharon. If it is programmed in Kharon as you assume, then it has been with master for hundreds of years. It cannot be let go free."

A pause, Arah didn't specifically look over to Zaha, didn't even turn, but the dark angel averted his face anyway.

The skeletal man continued speaking to the children :"What I wish to teach you is not fully natural, but not perfectly unnatural either. Consider it a compensation for something more unnatural. Are you able to hear without judgment?"

They both nodded. "Off course! We're happy with all types of help."

While nothing could be seen on his face Rokuna felt a pleased, content sort of feeling wave from Arash. Perhaps he wasn't greeted without skepticism a lot.

"Well then, what are your affinities?"

"We've got affinity with all elements," said Rokuna, curious at where this was headed. "We're not so good with using elements outside of monsters though."

"Are there no elements either of you feels particularly in tune with?"

"Wind!" replied Mondo without hesitation, thinking of Pegasus and also the Storm Angel that had linked to him for aid in transforming his dragon.

"I'm for Earth," said Rokuna, similarly thinking of the several Earth monsters she got along with, the Forest Giant, the Emerald Dragon, the elves and off course the Forest Angel, whom had invoked her for transforming her dragon. Heck, the one time she'd summoned Pegasus she hadn't been able to direct him to his full potential, that was one for Mondo. "Definitely Earth for me."

"What about water and fire?"

That was more difficult. "Oh, we can both use fire. But I think I just like fire better. Rokuna, you have anything with water?"

"I do tend to lead the water and earth spells ... "she muttered. "But what does this have to do with anything?"

"Pay attention well to what I am about to say. Earth and Water are the earth and the 'solid' elements. Fire and Wind are the hemisphere and 'loose' elements. The first two are 'dark' in that they reflect or bend light, the latter two are 'light' in that they allow light to pass through or even create it. For that reason, Holy is grouped with Earth and Water, and Demon with Fire and Wind, to create counterbalance."

"So you're saying Demon could be third main affinity, and Rokuna-chan's is Holy. But what for?"

"I will get to that in moment. Have you ever seen opposing elements interchanged?"

They thought about it, Chantalle could use both Wind and Earth magic, but didn't interchange them. How would something be both earth and wind anyway? And Fire and Water simply canceled each other out. Mondo recalled it first, as he had been close enough to hear the spell's name.

"_Catastroph_e! Reda used it to combine his dark energy with Coatl's holy energy!" he said eagerly.

"You have seen another, on the same day. _Darkness Illusion._ It is a demon spell for which me and Zaha mixed light and darkness for ultimate effect," said Shiru.

"Shiru, you know curse magic?"

Ruth grinned broadly while shifting around the group and said, "You have no idea." Shiru smiled with a little unease.

"After I went into service of the four elemental angels, I took some time to study Dervis, for Zaha's sake. It didn't take me long to find out that its nature and mechanics are the same as Lendia. In fact, they are the only elements that can be successfully substituted for each other in a spell."

To Mondo and Rokuna, Shiru had always been that perfect image of an angel. Hearing her say so casually she could cast curses was hard to unite with that. Off course, it didn't really make a difference for the kind of person she was anymore than it did for Zaha. Still, it was a stereotype they couldn't shake easily.

"Now that we're on mechanics ... " Arash pulled a scroll from one of his pocket and led them to a nearby balcony that gave view of the arena. Half of the balcony was lined with wall, onto which he placed the scroll with one end in a holder.

Mondo's eyes grew wide in shock as he realized what the drawings on it meant. "Necromancy?"

"Yes and no. Depends on what you understand under that word."

"Undead?" Mondo's voice became squeaky again.

Arash calmly continued further rolling open the scroll, towards the end end. "No, child. Here and now, it means unlife and it means golems."

He proceeded to explain about five technical stages of existence for a soul : life, unlife, undead, golems and dust. With the first being natural life and the last being death, the stages in between were varying degrees of unnatural, with undead being the deepest.

"You want to teach us to tamper with the form of spirits?" Mondo's fear was now joined with a defiant feeling so clear one didn't need to read auras to perceive it.

"Oh no, quite the opposite. Tampering with the spirit is forbidden in this city. What I intend to teach you is the art of the physical shell. The art of golems and the control of unlife through the two elements that govern the state of energy in this world : light and darkness, life and death, energy and relative emptiness."

Mondo was relieved at hearing there weren't going to be any undead, though he kept a weary eye on the scroll.

"Zombies, vampires, ghouls, banshees, they are all known as creatures of demise in the rest of the world. And maybe they are nothing beyond that. See, creatures like this are indeed unnatural, but only because their creation lacks a vital part that all other elements have for granted : the light of the sun. The dark realm fears the sun's destructive force, Elysium thinks we don't want it the gentle variant of it."

"But those monsters usually aren't evil," said Rokuna, thinking of the many victims she had met in the labyrinths. "It's not fair."

"How would you know that?" The paper voice sounded somehow higher than before.

"Because I can tell, I am the eyes of the Saint Star Dragon."

"You are an empath, are you not?"

"What do you mean by that?"

"The telepathic link a summoner has with the monster is one thing. Empathic summoners however suffer pain at a far deeper level and may lose control over the monster due to this. Are you this?"

"Yeah, I think she is," said Mondo when Rokuna hesitated to answer. "She has a lot less endurance than me, I thought it was cause she usually takes care of the spell energy."

"This is a weakness that is necessary for your talent as a Saint Star Child. I cannot help you overcome it, but it does give you a secondary benefit in that you might be able to create a golem without decades of planning or resorting to resurrection. Likewise, it might help in the case of the dragon you seek."

"How so?"

"Simple : you can feel what you do wrong and you will be able to compensate for it without returning to a drawing board. At least, I anticipate such. Are you interested?"

Mondo had a phobia for things like this, yet he nodded encouragingly. "Go for it."

Her kitty smile appeared. "Alright, sir Arash. I'm up for it. Where do we start?"

"You may start right here," said Arash before moving back to the start of the scroll. He started to chant a spell and the letters on the scroll started to glow softly as he moved a emaciated hand across them.

"What about me?" said Mondo, starting to feel as if he was left out of the loop of something big. "There's gotta be something for me too, I mean, Rokuna-chan has the eyes of the Saint Star Dragon and I have ..."

He loosened the band-aids on his forehead to reveal a red gem-like object embedded in his skin. "Professor Hiiragi says I probably represent the strength, but we haven't figured out exactly what this means."

Arash paused his spell, though he didn't turn his head to look at what Mondo was showing him.

"I don't have any knowledge that is specifically useful for you now. Maybe I have some scrolls for you later on."

"That's all?"

"That is all, indeed. Now be so gracious as not to disturb me."

The farther he progressed across the width of the scroll, the more alive the magic became. Like codes in a computer system it started up something within the hall. The rokumon on the floor below the balcony started to glow violet, while a golden circle appeared far above it at the ceiling : saint and demon energy in mirror.

Though invisible, Rokuna could feel an aura appear in between the two gates, an aura without identity. Soon, matter melted into this pattern until a tall humanoid had been formed. It had all the signs of life, an aura, a body that combined earth and flesh and water to keep it flexible, yet it had no mind whatsoever. It rooted in holy energy, yet the mechanics and spells that formed it were those of the demon element.

The spinal cord stuck half out of its back and strangely colored muscles covered part of it, other patches consisted of earth and stone for strength. Plates would cover weaker parts in a motion-friendly pattern, akin to the spots of a giraffe. Twisted as the creature was, it still evoked a sense of grace with its long limbs and a thin neck as it subtly rocked on its legs.

Rokuna took a deep breath and nodded to Arash. "I'm ready whenever you are." She linked to him and he smoothly handed her the contract over the golem.

The first thing she noticed was ... the absolute lack of impulse. It was as if she had lost all her limbs and was nothing.

It took a moment before she became aware of the pressure of gravity. A sense of touch set in, but there were only four dull degrees of impulse. No pain, but this also meant she felt a lot less of the world around her. The creature had eyes all over which she could use to find her way instead, however, her own brain wasn't used yet to the complex input of more than one direction. If she wanted it to move, she had to put far more effort into it than simply giving it a command of will. Just walking alone was tricky.

"Try to get in tune with the elements that compose the golem."

A suggestion not as easily done as said, but she tried.

The first she caught sense of was the Holiness. Having it course through the dark matter seemed contrary at first. Demon energy should have been used for this, the Holiness was separate, vicious and threatened to destroy the delicate energetic pattern that made the golem move. But as she caught sense of Earth and Water, she figured out how to use their inherent dark attributes to counter the light.

After a while she got the golem to walk and move properly without making the same motions herself. It was a clownlike sight, Ruth was laughing his butt off and Mondo did his very best not to join him in that. Even Shiru had a hand before her mouth, hiding her amusement.

"Blackwinged Angel, now is your turn."

"What?"

"I would like you to take place at the other end of the hall."

Zaha had been sitting on the railing of the balcony, silently watching. If he hadn't been too eager about the whole faux-zombie thing, then he definitely didn't like this turn of events.

"What's this about?" The golem mimicked Rokuna's motion as she turned to Arash.

"We are about to test the extent of your link. Fight him."

"Pardon me?"

"Use this golem in combat. I want to see your potential."

"You want me to fight Zaha?"

"See how long you can make the golem last."

"Isn't this a little extreme for my first try?" She wasn't sure whether to take it as offense at her incompetence or as compliment.

"I am merely asking you to act on your instincts and your implicit motion. Complex we haven't even started with. After all, most your experience in controlling monsters stems from battles, does it not?"

"Well, that does make sense ..."

"My creature is programmed into the scroll, feel free to damage it as you please, Black Winged Angel."

"Oh shut up! I am not going to fight her!" Zaha was practically fuming. Shiru too cast the sorcerer a questioning look.

"You won't be. Don't worry about accidentally causing the child to suffer, it is merely a doll that she happens to be controlling. Unlike before."

"That's the past." He was taken aback and whispered, but his voice was vicious nonetheless.

"If it is the past, then you should have no issues with this presently very different situation. You are the only warrior available and this will be a sufficient jump start for the child. If time and situation were more convenient, perhaps I would have taken it easier. However, it is not."

"That's not the point, that's..."

"Then what is the problem?"

Rokuna answered it, "He thinks I'm afraid of him."

Mondo's expression spoke bookparts about disbelief. "What? That's ridiculous! That's not right, is it, Zaha? Seriously, if she was afraid of him then we wouldn't have been able to fight at each others side like we did! I've seen her afraid and that totally rendered the monster we have merged with incapable of anything!"

No one knew Rokuna as well as Mondo did, but that was little help for convincing Zaha. The dark angel answered with silence.

Mondo continued : "Just consider it a game. I mean, me and Rokuna-chan get on each others skin so now and then too, right?"

"As if that's serious," Zaha scoffed.

"Right. Sure," Rokuna said cynically. "And this is?"

Arash had a point in his reasons for a battle as first exercise. Besides, there had been enough talking for now, she wanted to do something. So she resorted to provocation.

"Come on, Zaha, I'm not gonna be there for real. What, you think I'm such a wussy that I'd collapse over some flashback that might occur? Do I have to remind you I what I did to the Terror Dragon? Do I have to remind you what I did down in that last labyrinth? You're the one who should be worried, I might just be really good at this," she said more indignantly than intended.

Well, maybe she wasn't just trying to provoke him, maybe she really was about to have a fit of temper. Maybe she just wanted to beat that delusion out of him, prove that she wasn't afraid and he needed to quit feeling that horrid self-loathing that made it so difficult to be around him.

It worked.

"Oh? You think you're that good on your own? Fine, prove it!" Zaha sounded a little more confident about the case – and amused. He walked to the edge of the balcony, casting a warning glance at Arash – he better be right about how that golem worked. Then he leaped off and landed at the other end of the arena.

Rokuna set the golem into motion as well as she could. Zaha didn't even draw his sword yet.

At first, the fallen angel held back and all she could do was try to get close ... she stumbled across the legs of the golem and a vague sense of distortion waved through her mind. He circled out of reach repeatedly, seeming to test its range of motion.

Then he suddenly leaped into action and tackled the golem in the stomach, throwing it off its feet despite how much bigger it was than him.

There it was! That impulse Rokuna had been seeking. Twisting the golem's body, she had it brace itself against the ground with its arms.

Zaha easily dodged her first attack, moved to the other side and folded his armored wings over, ramming in a drop like shape against the back of the golem. Part of the creature's bone-like extrusions tore off as he unfolded his wings on impact, the entire creature floored and Rokuna couldn't make it catch itself. Zaha cast a glance towards the balcony, finding Rokuna to be perfectly unaffected by it. Aside of a little wobbliness, she didn't seem to feel the pain that would've caused on a living creature.

He waited for her to stand up the golem and now aimed for one of its arms, grabbing it and slamming it against the ground easily, despite it being much larger than him. However, the golem's smaller arm grabbed his right wing. He tore loose and created a distance, arrogantly looking on as once more the thing forced itself up.

With unexpected speed, the golem suddenly lunged for him.

Now he started to find it an interesting game.

"Hey little witch, try harder!" he said in a friendly mock as he somersaulted out of reach, then produced a _Black Photon _attack in a moment's rest. The energy threw back the golem against the pillars, where an energy shield bounced the creature back.

Rokuna too was starting to enjoy the exercise. While it didn't feel even close to the wonder of merging with a real monster, there was a certain lovely challenge in this. Not about winning or even controlling the golem, this was about feeling the elements within and making them _obey_ her. Raw energy, raw matter, no need for regard for injuries, it was almost getting addictive. The golem suffered significant damage, yet she felt nothing off it. Not even the brief queasiness that settled over her stomach at the first sight of blood through the creature's eyes held her back.

As she did, Zaha was starting to get carried away; battle was something that was in his blood and he enjoyed toying around while knowing he would neither lose nor harm.

Rokuna herself stood stock still now aside of her breathing, her eyes closed and a mischievous smile on her face.

Mondo knew she was alright, but it began to frighten him. To him it looked like a monster being slaughtered, seeing Rokuna so indifferent to it felt wrong even if he knew it wasn't a real monster. Eventually, he turned away and went to the stairs aside of the wall, sitting down there so the railing blocked his view.

Under the guidance of a rookie, the golem's slow attacks didn't last long against Zaha's far more agile maneuvering. Once he drew his weapon, it was close to over. He aimed for the arms first, didn't even need his black flames.

A very brief thought crossed her mind; indiscernible but somewhat alarming. An feeling welled up of ... irritation that he might be right? No, that was her own feeling in response to something else.

_Control._

This was Zaha's feeling.

Reminiscence of times gone when he would fight like this, no regard for any of his victims ..._ the red mask over him._

_The past still catches up and holds you down._

She countered the emotion she did not want to feel in the only way she knew : with anger.

When he threatened to chop off the last arm of the golem, she dropped the creature and used its damaged legs to kick Zaha away, causing him to crash into a wall within the shield's reach. He cringed a bit, yet laughed it off easily.

However, when setting off again the wall, his wounded leg slipped and the stroke of his wings sent him the wrong direction. She took the opportunity and charged the golem forward aggressively. Using that last arm, she stroke forward and charged it with light energy.

Somewhere in the back of her ears she heard an echo from two directions, Shiru's cry, then Mondo's voice.

Zaha caught the arm with both hands before it managed to grab him, but the light within could no longer be held back by the earth and exploded in all directions. Bits and pieces of the golem propelled in all directions. Almost right away, the blackness of Zaha's fire followed.

When she opened her eyes, she noticed Mondo's hands on her shoulders and a wave of concern around her.

"Rokuna-chan? What ... what happened?"

Rokuna looked into his worried brown eyes, not immediately understanding. Only now did she become aware of a strange haze over her mind.

In tandem with that retreating haze, she saw the flames vanish into thin air, Zaha emerged from the remnants. The energy shield around the arena ceased to be and he semi-crash landed onto the balcony, Mondo pulled Rokuna aside lest they would be scooped away by his wings. However, he folded them before they hit anyone one and caught himself on his arms. He then pushed backward to slump down against the railing behind him. His leg was bleeding all over again, but he laughed.

"That was more interesting than I had expected. Let's do it again some time."

"Zaha, that ..." Shiru knelt down and reached out towards the wound, but he caught her hand.

"I'm fine, really." He shook the whole deal off as if nothing was amiss.

"No, you're not. This needs treatment." Shiru said firmly.

Arash only ever the same expression to share, but if the cracking chuckle was any indication, he too was not that worried. In fact, one of his servant dolls came up the stairs that very moment, carrying bandages and a package of herbs.

"Why did you ... ?" Mondo was visibly upset. She could hear what he didn't say, oh so loudly.

"I didn't try to hurt him, I just ..." she muttered, still not fully returned to the here and now. Mondo looked from here to where Zaha was getting his leg tied up, then back at the empty eyed girl before him.

"But why would you want to-"

"I wasn't!" she suddenly snapped, pulling away from him. As she did so, she crossed eyes with Zaha.

Like before, it felt like he was investigating her. When he found she seemed unaffected, only irritable, he was relieved.

But she wasn't entirely unaffected, because he wasn't. Wound aside, he started to wonder why she had gotten carried away, again assuming that he did frighten her after all. It was irritating that she couldn't get that out of his head, but far stronger was a sense of regret as she fully realized that some distant instinct of her own might've tried to truly harm him. Not to kill, just harm ... she wasn't sure whether that was for better or for worse.

The string of thoughts and emotions that had welled up for a moment while he fought was something so complex and distorted a child like her couldn't really process it even if she felt it along, she realized. She had just responded without reasoning.

He now looked away again, softly speaking with Shiru.

"I didn't mean to get like that." she whispered to Mondo. "I'm sorry."

"Oh stop fretting!" said Ruth. "As if he couldn't handle that. Next time he's not gonna underestimate you. Not that you'll win either way." Haughty words of the imp, Ruth's way of dealing with the panic attack he had suffered from seeing the light go erratic.

Rokuna walked over to Zaha and opened her mouth, but he'd already guessed what was coming.

"You and your apologies. We had a good exercise, leave it at that." he said with a smile.

They decided to call it enough for today. Shiru went with some of the servants to seek out a few scrolls and Mondo offered to go along to carry stuff. Zaha wouldn't have any of that and ignored his leg while following them, Ruth right behind him as normal. This left Rokuna with Arash.

It felt like she was about to receive a scolding from a teacher, but strangely, he didn't comment on her actions at all. It was on his mind, but she didn't try reading it now, fearing he might catch something of her thoughts too. Today was already stressful enough, even though it was a burning question. Why wouldn't he ask about that?

"Child, controlling it is one thing. You were ... decent for a first try. The true challenge is creating a usable golem. One mistake and you copy the identity of a creature ... the temptation to take short-cuts is very easy and very, very illegal in this city. I reckon being discovered is not your objective."

"So no actual zombies," she concluded.

"Remember. Never try to revive anything that is beyond revival." For the first time since they'd arrived, he turned his head to look someone in the eye.

"I understand."

**· · · · · · ·**

When they returned Theta was gone, only a note left behind. Ruth translated it.

_"Folks, your wondrous host has found a possible lead and has gone on a highly dangerous life risking infiltration mission that you better be grateful for! Might take a few days. Ruth, meeting point Nox Ondine! Lotsa food's in the cooler, I heard greeny can cook, so enjoy! Oh, and see whether you can give Mr Store Owner a hand when I'm gone?"_

Mondo gulped and wondered how long he would he be able to go without food.

Zaha came in a little later, a bit more unsteady on his feet that he liked to let on. Ruth was quick to let him know the state of matters; Zaha wasn't happy either but for different reasons. They were essentially going to have to sit around and do _nothing_ for a while. Mondo was quick to agree.

Rokuna quietly retreated to the kitchen, cleared away some cluttering sculptures that were vaguely food themed and started working with the stuff that had been stacked together.

At first it seemed way too much for just a few days, till she found another note from Theta. Unable to read it, she called in Ruth. The imp laughed at the note, saying part of it was for practice. He then offered to give her a helping hand. When she tried to thank him, he waved it away as having heard of her horrid cooking and he was just making sure she wasn't going to poison him and she better not presume altruistic motives. Sure.

They chit-chatted about their worlds, she told about magic, while the imp in turn told her related stuff about demon magic, some pranks he was particularly proud of, and for stomach's sake, you can't spice meat like that, it was horrid in a bad way!

Horrid indeed. Today however Rokuna was actively trying to keep her things edible, they needed to be in top shape in case they suddenly would have to jump into action. It rather hurt her pride actually, having to admit that her 'art' had issues.

That had been the first time she had noticed that something was wrong.

It had been some time after the whole saving the world deal, they'd been relaxing at the Hiiragi home. She'd made a specialty for Mondo, which he rather panicked over. Before, she had always thought Mondo was just being really picky with her food or messing around or simply not wanting to eat something healthy. It had offended her because if he was her best friend, then he could just quit the act and appreciate her hard work, right?

First a vaguely queasy sense. Then he'd actually smelled it, then fearfully brought the fork to his mouth.

As it turned out, her food tasted downright awful to Mondo.

"Hey kid, that supposed to happen?"

She snapped out of her musing and looked down. Something was missing.

"- _Oh my ... maybe I should lay off the angst while preparing dinner. _-" she thought as she saw the reanimated fish with its newfound legs walk away to the right. She took a knife and pinned it against the board.

"Dinner's ready in a moment!" she called to the living room. Her voice sounded a little off.

"Are you crying?"

Ruth's question caught her off guard. "Huh?" She wiped her hands past her eyes and found they were a bit wet. "Oh...ehm, probably those union-like things. Human eyes are very fragile to that sort of thing." She forced a smile and the imp shrugged it off.

After unearthing a table that was large enough for all of them to sit at, Rokuna promptly cluttered it with her dishes. Mondo squinted at the main plate before him, he had been certain it had just moved.

"Are those knife-like things pinned all over it edible?" Zaha asked, quizzically staring at the same dish. "Or just decoration?"

"Just decoration." she chirped while shoving the last plate on the table.

Mondo took it back. Zombies and torture labyrinths and his best friend acting like she didn't know friend from foe anymore, those were little things ... he needed diversion _now_.

"So Shiru, what's on all those scrolls we brought along?"

She eagerly took the chance to avoid the food and pulled along the scrolls.

"All practice blue prints and notes for mindsets. They're mostly for Rokuna, but here's one for you." She handed him a small scroll and Mondo opened it, though he couldn't read a single thing on it. There were not even any sketches to give him a clue what it was about.

"What is this stuff anyway?" Zaha leaned aside and snatched the scroll away. Then he grinned.

"Oh I get it ... I'll be your tutor." he told Mondo.

"Wha?"

"Shiru will teach Rokuna and I'll teach you this nonsense. Not like I have anything better to do." He put the scroll aside, out of Mondo's reach, leaving the boy to face the food.

Well, so much for starting a diverting conversation. Rokuna had noticed the poor move but didn't care, she was just a bit miffed that Zaha had started eating before she'd given the signal. Oh well.

The boy reluctantly reached for his food and was rather shocked.

The food was not making him hurl.

Well, until Zaha pulled the knives out of the Mystery Dish and it tried to walk away. When Mondo stared in horror as the dark angel caught it and started to eat , he said :"Mwhat? Mwot mwaik iziz awaiv."

Mondo ran to what was presumed to be either the bathroom or a shrine to some weird plant.

Shiru became a little green and toppled over after she tried something that should've been bread, then coughed out something hard. She quickly excused herself and went to the yard.

Ruth loved the food. He loved it so much he kept propping it in till he was completely hyper and started bouncing through Theta's crazy house, wrecking a few things in the process.

"This doesn't usually happen at home." Rokuna said apologetically to Zaha. "I think it's just that I've got no experience with these ingredients."

"I don't get what their problem is." he said with a shrug. "Tastes fine to me."

"So, about what happened during the battle."

"Don't start apologizing again. It's tiresome."

"Tiresome? Zaha, I could've killed you."

He laughed mockingly. "Oh get real. I underestimated it. If I had really tried it would've taken me seconds to immobilize that thing and you know it."

Playing with her spork and food, she leaned her cheek on a hand. "I guess. But what if it had been someone who couldn't?"

"Then you wouldn't not have gone that far." he said with certainty.

"Maybe."

A moment's silence, then she just felt like continuing. "Say, I didn't get a chance to ask this. You've been here before, right?"

"Yes, what of it?"

"Ever got in trouble here?"

Zaha wasn't an easy talker, but maybe he had been once. Had anyone ever asked him before to speak about the demon realm? At first he simply answered the question shortly, he'd been in trouble, he'd gotten out, no big deal.

She continued asking though, wanting to know about how life was in this dark world. He gradually loosened up. The more curiosity Rokuna showed, the easier it became for him to talk. She wasn't revolted by the demons, in fact she had awe for the power of this realm.

As he spoke, the mental image Rokuna had of the dark realm gradually changed. Somber, dark and suffering, but it didn't have to be that way. This domain might be beautiful, thriving and even majestic. From the dust harvesting giants of the plains to the deep Schwarzwald, from the salt halls to Pandæmonium itself, Zaha started to remember the people he had seen there and the good he'd refused to recognize within them. People whom he no longer called fools.

Sometimes Reda came up and his voice became somewhat threatening, but he'd soon change subject. Either way, he prefered to omit his own roles. Deep down though, Zaha too had admiration for the fierce demon world. It was part of him in a way, a part he was letting out now.

When the other returned, Mondo a little dizzy still and Shiru carrying self-knocked-out Ruth, they found Zaha doing something that Mondo had never seen before and Shiru had missed for a long time.

**· · · · · · ·**

An invisible night and equally unseen morning passed. For now there was little they could do but wait and train. Rokuna tackled the many scrolls right when she woke up, the mad scientist genes she had inherited from her father kicking into full gear. She was already deciphering them at the breakfast table. Even if she couldn't read them, she could look at the images and get a feel for the magic within the paper.

"Let's go to the garden," Shiru said once she had woken."We'll need something to practice with."

"I'll go get some of the food. I think some of it were mini-golems that I mistook for ingredients. Remember me to thank Theta for them."

Shiru briefly froze. "Oh ... so what we... never mind." Her thoughts were with yesterday's dinner, but she spoke no further of it. "Alright, go get what you need."

Rokuna nodded eagerly and arrived in the yard in moments, carrying her material. Before starting, Shiru looked through the few open spots in the glass, hoping nobody would see them, but the skies were clear and the tiny gap between the buildings was not very inviting to the eye anyway.

"Well then, let us get started." Shiru lowered the cloak she wore and stretched her wings, this way she could execute her powers better. She spread her arms apart too and simultaneously whispered, "_Dark Voltage_!"

A dark shield surrounded the pool, keeping the trees at the walls safe. She then knelt down in the water, stretching her arms forward to form a small rokumon between her hands. Her eyes closed, she softly sang words in an alien language. Rokuna meanwhile was carefully attaching a scroll to it with a make-shift holder on the low trees.

The water below the rokumon started to bubble and the angel opened her eyes. "I've enchanted this pool and tied it to this sixgate. Please link to it and see whether you can find any blueprints you might employ."

Rokuna came to stand on a rock at the edge of the pool, where she put down Theta's material. A bit anxious but also excited, she placed a hand atop the thin ring of light, barely brushing the energy. The scrolls that surrounded them softly swayed as if there was a wind.

For a long time they stayed still, Shiru patiently waiting and Rokuna with both hands across the circle, seeking invisible patterns. Her focus was intense but such wasn't enough to warrant success. As Arash had said, she needed to get a feel for it as well.

Eventually she breathed out heavily. Shiru was surprised when instead of the circle separating into two, like in the arena, nothing happened.

"Give me a moment. I think I first need to try something else." Rokuna placed her hands across her face, fingers on her forehead and palms over he nose and mouth. With a sudden motion she reached forward again, as if she had throw her breath into the circle.

The glowing water below started to drip upward in black tendrils, earth and water and bone and flesh were pulled along. Once fish had lived in this pool, their pattern she drew from the Time Realm and their remains from the soil. Within the shared magic of Rokuna and Shiru came together earth and water and holiness in a vessel of curse magic.

Like billowing smoke the matter appeared from the small gate and a fish head formed that quickly drew solid. As if fleeing it splashed away in the air, moving on the pure winds of the world. In its wake was a trail of other copies of the pond, mud, roots, lotus and rocks, arranged senselessly.

For a moment Rokuna appeared to lose control, but then formed a second head to keep the emerging matter in check, this one a skull of an creature she did not know. The two trails ghosted around them, guided by Rokuna's thoughts. Even if it was merely the illusion of creation, one that would break at the slightest touch or loss of concentration, she was satisfied.

Yet much to her disappointment, it lasted hardly a minute.

"Off course it won't go well on your first try, have patience," Shiru said encouragingly.

But Rokuna slumped down to sit on the rock, not particularly happy. Shiru dissolved the rokumon and on the opposite edge of the pond.

"I don't think I'll even be able to really create a monster usable for battle. Maybe small things for spying and such, but ... without the nerves of pain, without reflexes of the natural body and only my own ... why am I learning this, Shiru? I mean, aside of maybe helping the Terror Dragon? Arash must have been at this for centuries. I'm a human, I won't live long enough to become an expert."

"I asked Arash the same question when he placed me behind books of energy drain spells and similar. They seemed so useless for anything I might ever do or even want to do. Such as Darkness Illusion, I asked why I would need this vicious type of stun spell."

The angel picked up a lotus that had been torn along by Rokuna's spell. Gently, she folded it between her hands.

"I would learn that some things are too strong for weaker stun spells and unless I really wanted to wound someone, I'd have to use the more painful way. I couldn't help much that time and still can't now, but I could help where I would otherwise have been unable to."

With those words, a flash of light came from between her hands. When she opened her hands, the magical lotus bloomed again. Splinters of a heavy memory were in Shiru's aura. Someone nearly gone, shocked back to life. Rokuna's homeworld had similar techniques to counter a stopped heart.

"I guess I'll keep up then." said the girl as she watched the lotus glide from Shiru's hand. It grow roots that reached down the pond, back to its mother plant.

"Will you continue now, or rest for a moment? That must've taken some energy."

Rokuna nodded. "I'll rest for a moment."

Shiru stood up from the water and sat next to her.

"So ..."

"You want to know what happened and Zaha won't talk about it?"

"He said I shouldn't worry about it and ... well ... " The angel paused. "Does this have anything to do with what's going amiss with you when you visit the labyrinths?"

From Shiru came nothing but kindness and a quiet, desperate need to help. If it had been anything else, Rokuna would've thrown her heart out right now. But on the long run, it wouldn't make things better, only more stressful. Rokuna would rather have at least her feel moderately okay till this mission was over.

A vicious whisper passed her mind : _do I wish others well for their sake or for my own? _She ignored it.

A partial truth would do for the time being, right?

"Well, was he thinking about Reda or anything? Right before it happened, I saw a flash of him ... I think it freaked me out a bit and that's why I became so defensive that couldn't tell anymore what I did."

Even if she hadn't necessarily lied, Rokuna still felt bad about this.

Nonetheless, that eased Shiru's mind a bit, as it made sense with what knowledge she had of Rokuna's other 'eyes'. She now presumed Rokuna 'saw' things when visiting the labyrinth and chose not to ask further, waiting till Rokuna herself would speak, as she had promised earlier.

They continued practicing shortly after. That was, until Rokuna accidentally animated a toad. She freaked out, broke the Dark Voltage shield, ran inside and wanted to hide behind Mondo. He objected to the not so wholesome rotting look of the mini-golem and since said golem acted in reflection to Rokuna, it came after him.

With both of them panicking, they ran into a pile of weird artifacts and got themselves knocked out under an avalanche of Theta's curiosities. That unfortunately was going to be a recurring theme for the next time.

Rokuna didn't mesh with toads like Mondo didn't mesh with undead and carrots.

**· · · · · · ·**

Two days passed. Practice passed. Whatever remnant Rokuna could gather from the pool quickly became corrupted and useless for even training.

Ruth sometimes went to meet Theta to check up on the status, but nothing came of it. For such an epic world-changing mission, there sure was a lot of hanging around and doing nothing. Mondo occasionally like to watch espionage movies ... they didn't tend to involve such tedious amounts of waiting for the spy to get the data from their infiltrators.

Thanks to Arash's medicine and whatever light Shiru had to spare, Zaha's leg fully regenerated within the passing of those days. In fact, it meant his only excuse to sit still was gone and the tiny rooms made him claustrophobic and irritable. He sometimes held little games with Mondo and whatever he was teaching him, but Rokuna couldn't quite decipher what it was.

They didn't find a chance to revisit Arash for further practice. By the end of the third day, all Rokuna had ended up with nothing more than a tiny fish-headed golem that only could crawl, little more than the pre-made model that she'd accidentally reanimated while cooking.

As she was lying in bed that evening, she thought of Seechee who'd probably miss her a lot, and of how Luke and Beginner were doing and her father ... they probably were fine, otherwise she would have noticed, but that didn't mean she didn't miss or worry about them.

Yet at the same time, she didn't want to use her sixth sense to check in on them too much.

What had been a useful gift long ago, the ability to speak directly to the souls of monsters had grown out to something far more complex. After the Terror Dragon, after the first time she had sent a real telepathic message to another human being, it had grown out of proportion, ... the sixth sense.

It wasn't a bad thing immediately, rather useful actually, being able to pick up the emotions of people and even to be able to read their thoughts to a degree without needing to specifically concentrate. But all those little impulses became clearer and clearer and sometimes they clogged up her mind. It was amateur's lack of skill, she had told herself. Over time, it would refine and she'd have telepathy like it appeared in anime and in books, a handy tool like a computer program that could access special information.

It didn't, however. The sixth sense in a world of blind, disoriented people that had no control over their aura meant that lest the world became like her, she would be stuck like this. So she had pretended all was fine, continued cooking her horrible food, continued to smile ...

Then the battle for Kharon's dominion had come, she herself had found the labyrinths and ...

She couldn't sleep like this.

So once again she got up and went out, the little golem with her.

Lights were out and everyone was supposed to be sleeping, but it didn't surprise her to find Zaha in the garden. When ever did he have enough rest to ... well, rest? When he noticed her, he briefly raised a hand as acknowledgment and gave a vague smile, his substitute for saying hello.

"Mind if I practice a bit?"

"Go ahead."

Rokuna started a circle, hoping to see whether she could still improve something ... or maybe just hoping to talk again.

"Hey, can you give me a curse circle?"

He complied wordlessly, raising a purple circle across the water. With some trouble, Rokuna managed to add a yellow one atop. For a while she silently worked, mostly in making the golem's legs move more smoothly. Arash had said she should be able to feel what she did wrong, but so far she hadn't noticed a lot of that.

Secretly it was also practice in not being influenced by Zaha's presence. She wasn't specifically closing herself off, but she tried not to be affected by it as he watched on.

"How's your leg?" she said eventually.

"Practically healed."

"So ... have you ever fought golems before?"

"Maybe. Never really cared to check."

So it would continue for a while, Rokuna working and Zaha answering her sporadic questions, though it didn't become a string of stories like before. Rokuna didn't even realize it herself immediately, but she was probing him. She wanted to know whether he was angry at her, preferably without wading through all the thoughts in his head.

"You're talkative lately." he remarked after not too long. "Why?"

"Why not?"

"You used to be silent around me."

"Oh, that was just cause you're rather ..." How was she going to even begin to explain this?

"Didn't Shiru tell you what I explained her? With the whole telepathy thing during the golem. I just got spooked, but that doesn't mean-"

"She did. So, you're in reality still afraid of me, aren't you?"

"I'm not!" How did he do that? She now felt guilty all over again.

Rokuna wasn't specifically reading his mind, but she could feel where his thoughts strayed. He did believe things had gotten out of control with the golem cause she'd gotten scared, his brush-it-off act a way of covering it up. He did not like guilt tripping others. Off course, this didn't work with a telepath.

She breathed in deeply and decided. It probably was best if _someone_ knew anyway.

"Say, could I tell you something in confidence?" she started, doubt following almost immediately.

"What?"

There was something harsh, maybe forceful about Zaha's eyes now, he knew she was about to spill something important.

"About my ability to speak to the souls of living beings ... " She hesitated to think about how to explain this and picked up the golem to stall.

"I cannot turn it off."

"Can't turn it off? What does that mean?" he asked suspiciously.

"It goes on the entire time, where ever I go, where ever I am. I always feel the world around me. It isn't a bad thing per say, but sometimes, it's really overwhelming. And you ... you are burdened with a bloody history. It's the sorrow you carry that I fear. Sometimes when you lose control, it's like an avalanche and I can't avoid feeling it too."

She had expected any sort of response, mostly that he would get even more depressive. But the response was almost ... comical.

When Zaha realized he was pretty much an open book to her, he mentally cringed together. His self-perception was akin to a weak pink fluff ball stuck in a horridly mutated armor, putting up an air of arrogance to make up while surrounded by people he considered more spiritually beautiful.

Rokuna had not taken elaborate time to 'read' Zaha however, exactly for that reason. In fact, if she wanted to keep her spirits up, trying to understand Zaha's psyche wasn't exactly recommendable. Though she knew he hated himself for many things, she hadn't noticed just _how_ he did so.

In any case, she didn't think his self-image image was just. But if she told him that right now, she would affirm she was 'reading' him.

"Wait, if you've already got trouble what _I_ carry, how the heck do you manage when we're in the labyrinths? That's why you asked me whether you could use possession to block part of your own mind, isn't it?"

"Yes." she admitted sadly. "It wasn't just cause I fear what I might do with it. Or maybe it is ... maybe it's what I might be driven to do."

Stubborn and impulsive as Zaha could be, he wasn't dumb.

"That's something big you've been hiding. You should've talked about this before you even entered the labyrinths!"

"Oh sure, hang up a whine-story and then somebody would decide to stop me from going down into the labyrinths and do my job? No thanks." She crossed her arms. "I can handle this."

He raised an eyebrow.

"Okay, it is not exactly the nicest experience." she grudgingly admitted. "It's hellish. That's why I need a way to cope _before_ I become that weepy mysterious waif who feebly gets doted over by the others while being nothing but the plot device."

Zaha considered for a moment, simply crossing off options in his mind.

"Hmm ... from that angle, my response is the same. Are you out of your mind?" His voice rose to a pitch and Rokuna sensed Mondo stir in his sleep, though fortunately he didn't wake.

"Excuse me?"

"Look at what happened to me when I became like that, with the whole ignoring part of myself! Okay, so I don't get what it's like to feel the world as you do, but I get what I feel when others are suffering under my eyes! Ignoring that ... you know first hand what kind of a person I was!" he said with a tone that left no room for argument.

"It's not like I'd be turning off compassion, just the sixth sense." she said somewhat indignantly, but her voice wasn't as resolute as she wanted it to be.

"Let's say it would be possible to darken it entirely. What if someone pleads for help and you can't hear it cause you turned it off? Too busy with your own suffering to notice that of others!"

Bullseye.

Even though that last part was more to himself than to her, he had just neatly summed up exactly why Rokuna had failed even really trying to train it closed. She couldn't shut the sixth sense off for more than the one reason that she liked to tell herself.

Fear for the pain of a truth, fear for consequence or fear for others sake. But most of all, fear of losing one's heart. She stood on a scale with two directions, either of which meant she'd lose touch with her true self : either ignore or abuse her power and both mean straying from that simple and clear path she had always taken for granted.

"I'm supposed to look out for you kids and I'm telling you right now that you're not going to use darkness to obscure parts of your own mind!" he continued when she remained silent.

Zaha's way of making his opinion known was hardly nice, but he was right.

"Enough now, please." She curled up.

He realized what his anger was doing and he focused on getting calmer. With that, his voice was softer again when he spoke next. She hadn't even noticed him stand up till she felt his hand atop of her head.

"You're still before the fork in your road." he muttered while looking past her, onto the golem.

"At least you know yourself well enough to see where you might fall." His hand brushed off and he walked away, having no better way to cut off a conversation that made him remember a little bit too much of himself.

**· · · · · · ·**

Theta arrived home a few hours later, dragging herself on tired feet. But her face was triumphant. She peeked across the rooms and found almost everyone sleeping. Mondo in one bedroom, Shiru in another, the imp at the ransacked cellar and Rokuna in the garden with a blanket over her.

Only Zaha was awake, unsurprisingly. He gave her his usual quiet greeting, for a moment expecting her to tell something. When she didn't, he thought she must have no news. She looked at the yard and then back again.

"I knew you were secretly good with kids." she said gleefully while giving him a friendly hit on the arm. She promptly winced, clutching her hand. Bad idea to do with about two meters of partially biomechanic muscle and your own mind on stimulating substances.

"You know, I'm going to go to my med-kit for a moment. Would you mind waking everyone?"

He looked at her in surprise, but before he could asked she nodded eagerly and blurted it out with a wide grin.

"It's here!"

**· · · · · · ·**


	4. Into Shadow

**· · · · · · ·**

**· Chapter IV · Into Shadow ·**

**· · · · · · ·**

"Remember that I told you about humans not being welcome in this city? Over the past four months, two humans have been apprehended within the city. One was a regular trader sneaking in, he was let go on short notice. I found him when nosing around the illegal entrances to the city. He told me he had been mind-probed on suspicion of being associated with some other human who was also there. This might seem inconsequential, but apparently that man had been there for a while ..... normally they immediately kick out the humans. I wasn't getting anywhere, so I looked into it. My fine nose for this sort of thing was right, off course."

She caught her breath and tossed a small crystal ball to Shiru. The angel turned it on and unintelligible image appeared in the air before them, many dots lining out a worm-like shape and various strange signs. The angels and the imp could read them, their expression changed. It wasn't the optimism the two children were expecting though.

"What the heck?" Zaha muttered.

"Ai, kinda interesting, no?"

"Excuse me, but what's going on?" Mondo asked.

"That's the energy print of the place to which they tracked our suspect's entrance." Theta said. "You can't really see but—" At that moment Shiru used her light spinning to change the projection, turning it into a color image. What appeared was a blurred image of the long neck and head of the Terror Dragon.

Mondo and Rokuna's perked up.

"It really is here! Let's go get it!" Mondo jumped up, but soon noticed no one responded.

"Hold it, _the head_ is where he entered?" with a slight shiver in her voice.

Theta nodded. "It's been moved since, but yeah, he came in from within the head apparently. Must have been either teleported there or smuggled in through it."

"But why through the head?"

Theta seemed to think for a moment. "That's probably because of the static."

"Huh?"

"You really don't know a lot yet, do you?"

Shiru took over. "It's why we couldn't smuggle ourselves in by hiding in something. When a gate transfers more than it was made for it expands, this causes a shift in the fabric of the surrounding energy streams. The security of this city is such that they can tell when this happens. But by in a way 'merging' with the monster, the static is compensated for to a degree."

"Okay, does this really matter? We've got a clue, let's go to that guy and question him!" Mondo said. Zaha set his finger to his thumb and tapped Mondo in the head hard.

"Hey, what's that good for?" he mumbled.

"Go there how? Don't go jump into things. There will be a lot of security, we need to figure out a ruse first." Zaha said.

"Yeah, the government doesn't know what they're looking at." said Ruth. "For all they know, the Terror Dragon was destroyed entirely. But they know something is up even if they can't translate that, they'll be alert around this human." The imp them turned to Rokuna.

She'd been reluctant to suggest it, but now the idea had been lighted.

"Can't she just go read the guy's mind?" Ruth asked.

**· · · · · · ·**

Involuntary he embraced himself. Anything else in the world he would charge headfirst into, but lately just wasn't his luck. With it's heavy bricks and iron gates and poorly lit windows, this city's equivalent of a police station was like someone had gone out of their way to make the place seem as much as one of those generic haunted castle. The only thing missing was the cheesy lightning bolt in the background.

"How nice, they even have a murder of ravens on the porch." Rokuna casually said.

"Yeah .... very nice." he whimpered.

Theta grinned and played the host who showed around her visitors, but she couldn't get out of sight of the building quick enough. After a brief walk around it she led them to a nearby park, or maybe it was an abandoned yard. Amidst gray trees with black leafs were the two angels, hidden in their cloaks and the surrounding fog.

"And?" Zaha asked.

"No ways to sneak in .... not that there was much to expect." Mondo said. "There's a whole deal of magic around the place too."

"That leaves me." Rokuna said somberly. She sat down on a fallen log and folded her hands, from which point everyone remained quiet. But it didn't take her long to open her eyes again.

"No good news here either. I can't use magic to enhance my clairvoyance and I'm not familiar with the person we're looking for so I can't link to him just like that. Someone seems to be monitoring the psychic activity using the rokumon system. Even if I were to pinpoint our target with magic-enhanced telepathy, we might be found out. I have next to no experience warding off such a conflict so it's a risk of exposure."

"That's just great." Mondo kicked away a rock.

"We could break him out instead." Shiru suggested. "If we would bring him to a quiet place outside of the territory of the Guard, Rokuna would be able to read his mind properly, right?"

Rokuna nodded. "Yes, once I know who to read, no problem. But how do we get him out?"

"Mondo is going in." Zaha suddenly said.

"What? Why me?"

"Cause that's what I've been teaching you for the past few days."

Mondo only gave him a confused look.

Zaha explained : "That scroll Arash gave him, it's the basics for possession and specifically, warding it off. I've been practicing with you on messing with psychic rokumon rules."

"Ai, isn't that .... strangely convenient." Theta said.

"Oh, so that's what all the stuff with 'ignore the energy' was for?" Mondo's optimism instantly returned.

"We'll go in together and break him out in no time."

Rokuna cast a weary look at the castle, barely visible beyond the trees. Zaha saw it.

"We? She's not going." he said. "In order to shield her as well, you'd basically have to possess her. That's a whole new story, one you can't tell."

"I'll help you from the outside, Mon-chan." she added softly.

Mondo was visibly disappointed. "Oh .... okay then." he said, looking from Zaha to Rokuna. He had been eager to do something at Rokuna's side again, this whole separation thing from the labyrinths wasn't working for him. But he had to admit he was inexperienced and couldn't even be sure whether he'd be able to shield _himself_ properly.

"My telepathic link with you won't be affected by magic, but I can't enhance it under these conditions. I'll hear you, but you're going to have to work on hearing me, okay?"

He nodded. "Got it."

"Ai folks, hold it!" Theta said perhaps a little too loud. "Just how are you going to get him in?"

"Well, I just figured I'm going to get arrested." Mondo said.

Theta blinked. "You are crazy. The moment you're going in there and they can't read you properly they'll suspect you're in tow with that guy. Never mind they'll think you look suspiciously innocent."

Mondo grinned. "Yep, and I also have a weird red gem thingy on my forehead that might betray me. But we'll figure something out!"

Rokuna pondered. "You could just pose as a lost child? Or maybe a slave who escaped?"

"There is no slave market in this city." Theta said irritably. "I get so sick of the crap people assume about my city."

Rokuna was taken aback, she had heard an angel talk about that once, but hadn't verified it. "Sorry." she muttered.

"Lost illegal child it is, then. The most important thing is that they'll never get the idea to investigate me too deep." said Mondo. "So how am I going to look not _too_ innocent?"

A brief silence fell, everyone around Mondo exchanged looks.

"You really need to ask that?" Ruth said.

Rokuna took a deep breath and said with a very strained voice : "You will start thinking about cute girls. A lot."

"Wablieve?" Mondo's voice was squeaky in disbelief.

**· · · · · · ·**

Mondo strayed the streets looking very, very disoriented. He didn't even have to act. After Rokuna had repeated her suggestion three times and he still had refused to believe his ears, she had grabbed him at the collar and said with her threatening tone that he better be thinking a lot about Saki and Lailai and Beginner once he came into the ward of the dark elves and invoke Cartoon Physics mode. If there was anything cute in there, that was fair game too.

"Understood? Drool will help."

Mondo was torn between being frightened and complete, utter confusion. Rokuna was encouraging him to swoon over other girls. Now he had heard all of it.

Nice one, universe ..... did he really drool when that happened?

Rokuna's problem wasn't so much the little female attention he got (which was considerably larger in his own mind) but that he liked flirting with them right in her face despite being more less was with her. That, and Mondo's macho mode meant he was dangerously out of touch with reality to the point where he once attacked kitties in the false belief they were threatening a girl. Neither fell in Rokuna's favor.

His thoughts were interrupted when he bumped into someone. Mondo's large brown eyes locked into the tiny ones of a troll. He briefly considered acting scared, but dismissed it at once. This person simply didn't scare him and he was sure he was a lousy actor.

"And who are you, little child?" the troll said in a friendly voice.

Bingo. Just the right person to deliver him to the station, claiming they had found an unsupervised child.

"Well, I'm pretty much totally lost." he said honestly. That wasn't a lie, seeing as he had made a gate to some random location in the city and had no idea where he was now.

It worked too.

About half an hour later, after two grueling store visits (the troll was a shopaholic), he was handed over to a patrol of dark elves on their skeletal mounts. Mondo bit through, they didn't actually look so scary in full light. Fortunately nobody checked his ears, though they did remove his hood to get a better look at his face; for that he had a headband and his hair dyed.

Mondo found it kinda humiliating, he got to sit in front of one of the riders who talked to him like he was some sort of toddler. Rokuna messaged him that since elves were much taller than humans, he probably looked like an eight year old or younger to them. Didn't stop him from being peeved at it.

In fact, he was seriously irritated after yet another joke about the way his hair pointed in all directions that he was ready to snap. Mondo rarely got ticked off, but some things managed to do the trick, like Luke when he was particular arrogant .... and uh ..... Luke. Then there was ..... uhm .... maybe it just was the drool remark.

"- _Mondo, just admit it. You're angry because we pointed out your macho mode is so ridiculous it could throw off guard a high security police station._ -"

Mondo pouted and crossed his arms. _"- I don't hear you complain when we are going fluff mode. _-"

"- _That's different!_ -"

"- _Cause I don't drool then?_ -"

"- _Mon-chan, this is the worst time ever to start a spat with me_. -"

"- _Yeah, yeah._ -"

They grumbled for a while, till the guard station loomed up from between the buildings. Mondo's breath became a little uneven, the elf behind him immediately noticed.

"Got a scaredycat here." she called to her companion, then she told Mondo : "You're probably not gonna go to prison, kid, lest you're some kind of spy." A failed attempt at sounding reassuring, even if he really _had _been a lost child.

"I'm not scared." he said grumpily.

They arrived soon and Mondo tried to focus on thoughts that would make him giddy, but up close the building seemed even more ominous. Once inside though, it strangely was a lot cozier. Not exactly happy, but definitely warmed than it had looked from the outside. He was set off while the other members of the patrol went to take care of their mounts. From there, he was escorted into a busy but muted hall.

Once out of their cloaks and veils, the female part of the dark elves were well, elves. Prrrrreeeeetty. It didn't take Mondo much effort to 'get in role'. He was placed in a small cell with a table and soon someone came to check him for a standard procedure of telltale illegal spells. By that time, with a bit of effort on his behalf, he had already sank into dreamland.

The world became a temporary haze, where he only vaguely heard someone speak.

"Well, no shape-alteration spells." concluded their test conductor. He briefly looked at Mondo's (fake) pointed ears, but then set the headband in place again. "No static, no hidden spaces, no slumbering battle spells, I don't smell any wax either and— oh my shadow, he's drooling on the table."

Wearily they beheld the boy while waiting for their psychic to have a moment. Mondo would occasionally chuckle like a lovesick fool and muttered various names. Then he suddenly got into some sort of delusional act, embracing someone who wasn't present and reciting something that might have been poetry in some state of mind, but made absolutely no sense in the language they heard it as. Both their jaws dropped when love bubbles and sparkles appeared in the air around the child.

After a mesmerized period one of them managed to say : "It's like he has a hormone overdose combined with. Just .... eh ... Go check the homunculi registers whether any of them reproduced."

"It's just so corny, I can't stop watching. It's like those soaps they send out on the crystal ball network .... I never believed I would see someone act like that in real life."

The first elbowed her. "Go check registers .... " But he couldn't stop watching himself.

"Maybe it's some new sort of illness. Maybe we could get it classified and get famous like that! Imagine that, us discovering soapatixis extremus!"

At that moment, Mondo's eye fell on the female elf and recognized a new cute girl. He immediately took her hand and put on his best sparkly teeth face. She backed off in horror, fiercely shaking her hand free before he could even get as far as to complement her on her eyes.

"Aaaah, what if it's infectious? I need a bath!" She ran out, almost bumping into their resident psychic. Just in time she backed off and gave a respectful bow.

"Now you're just overreacting." the Monitor said sternly.

The remaining agent returned Mondo to his seat and and the Monitor stood behind him, created a small rokumon between her hands and lowered it over Mondo's head. The ring became invisible and the dark elf rested her hands on Mondo's shoulders.

Mondo hardly noticed, he was currently locked in a daydream where Lailai was dancing to a song of Saki, irritably distracting for the psychic Monitor not just because it was so all-encompassing, but also frilly and happy and joyous and SHINY, quite the contrary from the strength and somberness which the dark elves valued.

Then, for a second she had been certain that she had just felt something like him using dark energy to conceal part of his mind .... but that was a ludicrous thought, as such a thing was a highly advanced skill and the very idea some top level demon had sat down with this little twit to teach it to him was too ridiculous to consider. Not even her currently most difficult prisoner had it.

Whatever. The sparkles threatened to worsen her headache beyond what it already was. There were no obvious signs of the kid being up to something in particular. She released the link and stepped away. The two agents relaxed, if there had been any reason for worry they would have heard it by now.

"Would you do something about the bubbles?" she asked as she left, in vain trying to wave off the daydream decoration.

The two agents nodded once. "We'll figure out something."

"Very well. You may bring him to the lounge, I will make up a report. Also, look for relatives, pursue the homunculus theory, this child has ..... an abnormal amount of hormones despite not even knowing about the birds and bees. Also, he obviously suffers from delusions."

"Oh, we noticed that."

Mondo became dimly aware of the room around him again and something else. Envy?

But why? Mondo couldn't tie that to anything, why would he feel envy? No, .... this was Rokuna. She probably was envious with all the girls he'd been thinking over and he became a little nervous.

Dangit, that elf that had just stood behind him had pretty eyes, he wondered what she looked like under that cloak.

Somehow, someway, Rokuna managed to give him a mental kick that mostly woke him from it. Mondo instinctively yelped, though he hadn't actually felt anything for real.

The two agents startled and the male came forth to escort Mondo away, while the female shied away when Mondo made another dash for her hands.

Mondo was shoved in a lounge supervised by a drowsy dwarf. Once there, he gradually drifted back to his common sense.

The room was empty save for that half-sleeping dwarf and several poofy chairs, one of which Mondo sat in. Unlike the coarse rock plate walls that made up most of the station, this room was comfier, he guessed this was a guest room of sorts that was reserved for anyone who wasn't convict or worked here.

Now it really sank in that he had escaped psychic detection by making a public fool of himself. Sure, his adventures in Rokumon Sekai often were silly and invoked what Rokuna called Cartoon Physics, but this .... if there ever would be a historical record of his adventures, he vowed that the way he sneaked into the dark elf guard station would never get a detailed description.

Alright. Time for action.

Rokuna bluntly suggested he just knock out the dwarf. Now, sneaking up on people wasn't exactly chivalrous and didn't fall well with Mondo. Then again, sneaking into law enforcement stations wasn't either.

Before the dwarf had a chance to ask him what he did, Mondo had taken off his helmet and whacked him on the back of the head with it. The dwarf seemed unaffected for a moment and looked behind himself with wide eyes. Mondo smiled nervously, but then the dwarf dropped over. He put the helmet back on the head it belonged to and breathed out in relief.

Now came the tricky part, finding the cell of their target. Mondo would try to sneak around with as little rokumon as possible, as he didn't want to accidentally teleport himself past any secured wall that might trigger an alarm. For this purpose he had an enchanted crayon to draw out rokumons, it was the only thing that wouldn't get confiscated.

The nearest wall served as ground for the first gate. It'd leave a blatant trace of his route, but if he was quick enough, he could actually use this to confuse his pursuers.

Where Rokuna was good with spells, Mondo was good with raw power. She guided him through the complex energetic codes, invisible to him but decipherable for her. He in turn used his magic to break the security, quietly and quickly.

They first needed whatever chamber held the reports in order to find the cell of their target, which took more than a few tries to find. Once they did, the files turned out to be stored in crystal balls ..... more time to lose, as neither of them could actually read the language the information was projected in. Rokuna created a new link to Shiru who had to help them translate.

At this point, Mondo caught voices in a nearby room. They were referring to the weird lost kid they had picked up and he went to the half open door to listen whether his absence had already been found out.

"Oh, the bubble kid? Elatte was right about the homunculus theory, apparently a certain Theta was seen with relatives that recently came over, illegally it seems."

"Hm? I believe we've got that on file. Theta, a big name for such an insignificant person, I think I can guess what line she was from."

"Shall I prepare the forms to pursue her?" It wasn't really a question, just a formality of assurance, so the answer came unexpected.

"No."

"What? But she smuggled people into the city and —"

"You and we all know what 'relative' means for the homunculi. If we dig into this, I can tell you right away what we're going to find, another nest of woe that we won't be able to do anything about. As it is, I am not going to waste any forces on something trivial like a thrift store assistant who smuggles her 'relatives' in for a visit when there are freaking Vujad soldiers in our city!" The speaker paused, apparently needing a moment to calm down.

"You say the child isn't clear of mind?"

"He seems to be rather out of it. He has some sort of spontaneous hormone overdose and bubbles appear in the air around him when he gets particularly high. The Monitor did not detect any connections the outside and he seems to carry no hidden spells either."

"Alright, send him back and give that thrift store girl a firm warning along with an order to get them out of the city on her own, lest we do it. That will do."

Aside of being peeved at the remarks on his intelligence, he realized he had to think quick. They were going to discover any time soon that he was gone.

Sooner, apparently : just then the door opposite of the desk opened.

"That doesn't look right." said one of the few agents that entered, their eye falling in Mondo in the half opened door.

Maybe eavesdropping in a public building wasn't the smartest thing to do, the Knights realized.

Mondo bolted back into the room, dropping the sphere he had been holding and into the rokumon he had come from. At this point, he lost contact with Rokuna, but he had no choice but to go on.

Hurriedly he drew another gate on the wall of his current location, a third in this room now, but the walls weren't as smooth here as in the starter room and the gate failed to come to life. Both the other rokumon started to glow, betraying someone was tapping into them. He didn't need to look to know they had started passing his gates. On the brink of panic he tried to fix his current gate.

He wasn't in time, and the head of a dark elf popped up out of one of the gates. "He's here!"

Only one thing saved Mondo from being snatched and that was that the tall elf had some serious trouble worming themselves out of the Mondo-sized gate. He restored the gate and fled.

This he repeated a few times, his crayon growing shorter and shorter and still no sign of Rokuna. Till at one point he landed in a room that already was occupied; they were waiting for him.

Against four trained elves a child like him stood no chance. Within seconds they had grabbed him, pinched his arms behind his back and pushed him to the ground. He still tried to kick, to no avail.

_Where was Rokuna?_

"Yeaaaaaagh!" one of them suddenly called yelled. But as they turned, the only found air.

"- _Mon-chan, jump in the gate you came from! _-"

"- Rokuna-chan, where were you? -"

"- Don't ask, jump the moment you're free! -"

"The moment I'm—"

Just then, Ruth appeared before the elf that was holding Mondo down and lashed out with his spiraled mini-spear. Along with another cry, Mondo noticed a few drops of blood on the ground before him.

"Get up!" the imp called.

He didn't need another prompt, wrestled free and jumped into the gate before him, which had somehow changed from the neutral white to the purple hue of the dark element.

He popped out in a room, or rather, a hall he hadn't been in before, Ruth joined him a second later. The gate he had jumped from vanished, taking along the little light it had given.

"Ruth! What's going on?" Mondo asked in the near-dark.

"Trouble." the imp said simply. "At least we don't have to worry about hiding from that fake psychic elf anymore."

"What happened? Is Rokuna okay? Were you guys found?"

The imp shook his head. "Nah, I don't know much more than you do, they just sent me in. I'm being the errand boy, as usual." he grumbled.

"Did we fail?"

The imp chuckled.

"Oh, no. With the alarm off already, I could get in relatively easy. Now, I know what cell we need."

**· · · · · · ·**

The 'cell' was in the middle of a hall, a simple rokumon on the floor to encase the prisoner and nothing but a few magical torches the light the place. The man sat legs crossed, arms crossed and eyes closed, most of him hidden behind black clothing. The guards had tripled in the last few minutes, Mondo wondered why they were raising security specifically around this person? They had many prisoners here, maybe they suspected they were trying to find this one? But how?

Rokuna recognized the setup.

"- _Mon-chan, whatever you do, steer clear of that rokumon, this isn't the regular barrier type._ -"

"- _Rokuna-chan! Are you okay? Where were you?"_

"- _Don't worry, Mon-chan._ -"

"- _Okay..... just out of curiosity, what does happen if I were to touch it?_ -"

"- _Just don't Mon-chan, it hurts. We'll have to break it first_. -"

He shifted slightly in his position. Using some earth magic he had made a small outburst in a corner high in the chamber and he used Darkness to conceal himself from the elven vision. Mondo closed his eyes and moved in tandem with Rokuna, who hacked the chamber's magical security. He needed all his concentration to perceive her instructions on how exactly to hook into the energetic pattern, then he quietly repeated the unlock spell she recited. Invisibly, they tore down the barrier bit by bit.

The first to notice the break was the prisoner himself, seconds before the guards. A fight broke out at once.

What was an initial moment of absolute awe at this person's skill and agility quickly turned to horror when the man got hold of a weapon.

The dark elf guard was slaughtered before his eyes. The elves could put up a strong fight and actually seemed to get the upper hand right away, but once the soldier threw that small bomb that he got from somewhere, it was a lost cause for them. This wasn't just any human, this was a bred murderer.

"Stop it!" Mondo heard himself scream as he jumped down from his hiding spot.

The soldier was momentarily confused by where the voice came from, then he muttered some spell allowing him advanced sight. Seeing a angry child run towards him caused no little surprise, almost enough to distract him.

Not nearly enough though.

He finished off the last elf that had escaped the small explosion with a swift cut to the throat and immediately turned to Mondo, kicking him against a wall.

For a second Mondo thought he was going to die, but nothing happened.

Harsh gray eyes looked down at him from just above a black scarf.

"Who the heck are you?"

"I'm here to get you out." Mondo muttered while his eyes focused onto a bloody, motionless hand in the shadows beyond.

"That wasn't my question!"

Mondo found himself with a blade aimed at him, it was enough to snap him to his senses. He estimated the situation he was in, then sank back against the wall, kicked the blade aside and rolled off a few meters away. There he remained in a half-knelt position, one hand on the floor and ready to leap away a second time.

"You didn't have to kill them!" Mondo screamed, but his voice broke under tears.

"Are you actually crying?" the man said in disbelief.

"Yeah, sad, isn't it? " The man turned up to see Ruth, rolling his eyes. "So you two, before we engage in some rant on the morality of this whole deal, how about we escape? They're coming."

The man ran over and kicked open the door, indeed the sound of footsteps grew strong. He hesitated, not sure where to go now.

"Do you two have a way out?" he asked suspiciously.

He saw Ruth and Mondo converse quietly, at his question they looked up. Mondo said :"Follow me." in a tone that wasn't just a little bitter.

Mondo created a new gate and all three passed it. Now that they had been found out, Mondo made no more effort to conceal his presence. They landed a few streets away from the station, which was as far as Mondo could teleport while still being relatively certain he wasn't bringing them into a dangerous position.

Outside they had the advantage none of the dark elves were particularly skilled rokumon creators, let alone summoners, .... it was just a bit of a problem they didn't give Mondo any time to calculate any farther reaching gates and chances he could not take in this unfamiliar area. If he teleported them into the wrong place, it could kill them.

"I've got no choice." Mondo said ruefully. He dismissed the dark energy clouding his summoner's key, reached forth the remnant of the crayon and drew a rokumon in the air. The crayon burned up almost entirely as he called out :

"Pegasus, please, I need your help!"

The gate erupted at once into a spray of clouds as a the winged horse jumped from it. Within mental seconds Mondo shared his situation with Pegasus, as hoped he was all too eager to help. The soldier needed no further prodding either and jumped onto the horse's back as well. Pegasus spread his wings and took off at once.

Their escape route was limited as the winged horse needed broad streets to fly through and rising above the buildings was out of the question; his fierce white coat made him an easy target in the air above.

First the citizens did not notice anything out of the ordinary, but when they saw the Guard pursue the winged horse, they started to flock aside. The skeletal mounts could not fly, but they could spit some sort of energy that turned to sticky goo once it hit something. Amidst the crowded street they had to be careful with that, but once the people cleared away, on was the hit-the-target game.

Where a bird would've already crashed into a wall, Pegasus could lopside and brace off with his hooves, looking like he ran across the walls several times. This was their advantage against the skeletal creatures, till they encountered a group ahead of them that had crawled up the walls. Behind them their pursuers prepared to drive them towards the trap by aiming at the center of the street's airspace.

"Keep flying in the center!" the man called.

"But they'll hit us, we still have a chance if we try to dodge them at the walls!"

"Just freaking do it!"

Looking back, Mondo noticed him throwing something.

This bomb had a larger damage range, even taking along part of the nearby buildings. Mondo had no time being shocked over the people that might have just died there. Pegasus passed right at the center, but one of the mounts leaped off the wall so that the elf on it could jump at Pegasus.

"Don't!" Pegasus called, but the man had already jumped off.

Pegasus lost balance for due to the extra push and barely avoided another of the skeletal creatures. He made as sharp a turn as he could manage and flew back. They found the man in a window post, and another dead elf down on the street.

Almost enough for Mondo to leave him behind before he killed anyone else, but he didn't. Pegasus steered closer and their 'guest' jumped back on.

"Where do you keep those bombs?" Mondo couldn't help but ask, just in case the man ever decided to throw one in his direction.

"Stomach and teeth." he simply said.

They were being driven to a remote area of the city, one that had less people in it. When Mondo noticed this, he reluctantly asked :"How much of those bombs do you have left?"

"How much do you need?"

"Enough time for me to make a gate to a safe place. I'm gonna need some time to harness energy for a long distance and they need to stay away for a while so they don't follow us once we're through."

"Why don't you just close the gate behind you?"

"Well, I happen to have no fricking idea how to do that."

"What? Why not?"

"I don't know how to close a gate, I never had to! They usually just disappear on their own!"

"That's just great. You somehow have the skill to sneak past the Monitor and some freaky green card for gate energy, but you can't even close one?"

Mondo didn't reply. His entrance tactic was a disgraceful contrast to how bloody today had become, and certainly not something this person needed to know about.

"Whatever time I can buy us won't be enough if you can't close a gate behind you."

Just at that moment, Rokuna said : "- _Mon-chan, I'm going to lose touch with you again, just keep fleeing for now!_ -"

"What? Rokuna-chan, wait a moment! Rokuna-chan?"

**· · · · · · ·**

The first thing the Monitor noticed was someone who entered the station after the alarm had subdued, yet she did not strike alarm for some reason.

The second thing the Monitor noticed was, aside of a slight rise in her Vujad-induced headache, a hint of a mellow, unnaturally soothing feeling. She should really be calling for an escort now she was alone, but it felt so needless.

There her visitor was, in the corner of her private chamber. With her big green eyes and folded hands, she looked almost angelically innocent, but something about her eyes was very, very off. She now noticed the human ears as well and assumed the boy she had met earlier had sported some new variant of fake ears.

The Monitor calmly turned on some lights.

"You're the one that hacked me previously. You have some nerve showing up in here, after such a loss."

"A loss? Well, you did find out about us, indeed. But I lost nothing." Rokuna smiled, but there was no friendliness in it.

"You bought your friend time, but he hasn't escaped yet. You could try a repeat, off course, but we'll catch him in the end." said the Monitor. "Then I'll find out what is going on for real."

"I could just tell you." Rokuna offered. "But I've got a feeling you won't listen. I already probed the atmosphere of the building the moment I saw it. It's not your job to listen, you don't care, you'll leave that to the Court and we simply don't have that sort of time."

The elf lady tilted her head a little, curiously looking the child over.

"What are you doing?" she asked, though she had no idea why in particular.

"A lot of things you won't understand at all."

"Such big words for such a young _human _child. I've spent two centuries reading people's minds, there is a lot that I understand. How would a child of the short lived human race know more than I?"

Rokuna sat down on a chair as if she had nothing in the world to worry about, least from the elf before her.

"You never really read any minds." she said, hoping to bait her arrogance. "You're a fake."

The elf remained perfectly composed as she sat down opposite of Rokuna, but her emotions were playing up. Arrogance was a great weakness to exploit.

"How would you know?"

"You don't have any talent for clairvoyance by your own, so something as simple as dark energy can obscure your view of a mind. You see only the top layer of thoughts, but you don't feel anything. You're a fake. And I deeply envy you for that. You're completely dependent on this one specific magical system here, yet you have all that influence simply by being in your little nest here. How long did it take your people to develop this system?"

"Eighty years. That's eighty years of solid research and testing, and thousands of years of proved functionality. Off course it works. And you should indeed envy that."

"Yet today someone got through."

"Such happens. I underestimated him. That was a very clever trick of who ever sent you two."

Rokuna sighed and leaned her chin on her hands.

"The living mind has so much corners and layers, but all you can see are the direct, conscious thoughts. You can't even tell anything farther .... that's what I envy, not your phony system. Though, I must give the creator of the system credit. It surely is effective."

"Oh? With such words you make it sound like you can do any better."

Rokuna sat up straight.

"How are your guards doing, chasing my friend and that .... what is he called, a Vujad soldier?"

When the elf noticed her perception of her guards were falling away one by one, she stood up, panic threatening to overcome her .... but it didn't happen.

"See? Your system only works when you focus on it, it's not part of you. I think that's why you've been here for two hundred years, while the system has been around for a thousand years or so. Your precedors eventually have their natural clairvoyance awaken, and then they become useless when the pain affects them deeper."

"What are you doing?" asked the elf again, her eyes shooting around as if she sought something .... Rokuna didn't allow her to see a weapon in anything. Her formerly sweet expression gradually turned into a mischievous one.

"You're just doing your job, I know." Rokuna said. "But as a Mon Colle Knight, so am I."

The elf looked directly at the girl now.

"Pandæmonium wants nothing to do with you!" she fiercely whispered.

"Even if you know we're only doing it to unseal the prisons in Kharon? People are dying right now there, many of them citizens of the dark realm. We have no time. So, I took over the parts of your mind you're not even aware that you have, specifically, the ones you use to tap into the hive system that controls the elf Guard. That's what I am doing."

The Monitor was aware she should do a whole lot of things right now, her thoughts were crystal clear on the subject .... yet all she did was sit down again.

"You're actually quite a pampered person. You can just magically break your link to anyone who is in too much pain before it affects you. I'll never have that privilege." Rokuna continued, more talking to herself than to the elf.

"I guess that I should have known. If it really was possible to be linked to someone without perceiving their pain, someone in the past thousands of years would have discovered it already. It wouldn't be logical either, cause how is something like a mere energy going to be able to tell what signal to let through and what not?"

At that moment, Ruth popped up.

"Oh, hi Ruth." Rokuna casually said.

"Hey kid, what are you doing?" the imp asked curiously.

"Mentally manipulating someone to our advantage. It's disappointingly easy. She's a pillow princess!"

"Well, can you hurry it up? Our guys are in a pinch."

"They'll manage." Rokuna said drowsily, only little surprised as her own indifference.

"What the heck? You need to tell those elves to back off!"

"I can't just do that so easily. There's what, thirty of them? I can't control so many sane minds at once even if I impersonate her. Unless .... "

_Maybe I just fear the pain I'll cause them and so me as well. How selfish._

She dug deeper into the mind of the Monitor, seeking material for a lie she could tell the dark elves.

The Monitor at this point had become quite unresponsive, her eyes focused vaguely on the fluttering imp and not feeling inclined to do anything.

"Ruth, tell them to teleport to the park as soon as the guards spread in a wide circle. I'm having the Monitor tell them to follow a specific maneuver, they've got under a minute to go unseen."

"Gotcha."

**· · · · · · ·**

The soldier noticed first something was up when their pursuers backed off.

"They're spreading out and are evoking a wide rokumon. Bad news." he said.

"Good news." Ruth popped up aside of Pegasus, only to disappear out of sight at once.

"Dangit!" He teleported again to catch up, this time holding onto the white manes. "Now land right away, make a rokumon, go to the park."

"Don't do that, it's crazy! I don't know what spell they're starting but it's the worst time to land right now. We should try to reach the upper part of the city!" the soldier objected.

"No, too long a distance and-"

"Rokuna says you've got about a minute." Ruth interrupted.

"She is behind this? But how?"

"Mindscrewing the Monitor or something." Ruth said with a shrug and disappeared again.

Pegasus circled a nearby empty terrace and landed, Mondo had leaped off before the horse even stood still and projected a rokumon, recalling the location of the park. Once he had enough energy, the gate expanded enough for Pegasus to pass, burning up that last bit of the crayon.

They appeared again in the sky a short distance from the park. Pegasus dove down and folded his wings before he reached the trees, first he jumped into gallop to catch his momentum, then continued in a canter only to stop at a clearing.

The soldier hopped off at once, suspiciously looking around for an ambush.

"Thank you, my friend." Mondo said as he petted Pegasus' nose. "I'll teleport you back now."

Pegasus wearily looked at Mondo's company. "- _I'd rather not leave you alone with that person_. -" he said quietly.

"- _It will be fine, Zaha and Shiru-san are here. Besides, I won't have you involved any further than absolutely necessary, you already risked so much for me back there._ -"

"- _Anytime. Good luck with your mission, Mondo. _-"

Mondo smiled. "Thank you." he said once more. He teleported Pegasus back, a vague memory coming up from long ago and brighter days when all they worried over was getting Valkyrie toddlers back home. He then turned to soldier.

With Pegasus gone, the man seemed to figure they were out of danger for now and he said :"This is the point where you tell why you got me out of there."

"You have information that we need."

A scornful laughter was the answer. "And you hope to torture it out of me or something? You don't look like you're part of any group that even so much as has the skills needed for that."

"We won't need to hurt you." Mondo said. "In fact, once this is all over, we'll just let you go."

"Riiiiiight." But the words of the imp were on his mind; who ever this Rokuna was, he'd rather avoid them.

"What else would we do?" Mondo asked honestly.

"You'd let me go to kill another day? You seemed pretty upset when I started massacring those elves."

Mondo was taken aback by that.

"Never seen so much blood, have you?" the man continued.

"Actually, .... I have. It's the reason I'm here in fact."

"Let me guess, a Vujad group killed your village and you and your band of heroes are trying to find the one that led them and personally killed your parents? Always the same. Forget it, you moron. The Vujad have no more unity since the church disbanded us. Everyone of us is without name, at the most you'll get killed."

Mondo's fists clenched together, he felt tears biting again.

"I've also killed before, at least as part of a shared effort. Now it turned out that what I helped kill once hasn't fully died. That's also part of the reason I'm here."

_The reason I'm here ...._

It didn't take long for the soldier to put together the puzzle pieces. The child before him was referring to the Terror Dragon head which he had been hired to protect and the ones who killed that were ....

This time, his confusion _did _cost him vital reaction time.

A slightly woosh in the air behind him, then a hand grabbed him in the back of the neck harshly and forced him to his knees. The grip was like metal, he couldn't even look behind him to see who held him down.

"A Vujad Soldier?" said a surprised voice from behind.

"Hey, where are Rokuna-chan and Theta-san?" Mondo asked, noticing their absence.

"Theta we sent home, but Rokuna entered the station in order to confront the Monitor. She said that once she was inside she could physically hack their system." Zaha answered.

"Oh, that's what Ruth meant? It worked, but why hasn't she returned yet?"

He looked over to Shiru, remembering Rokuna had linked to her earlier for translation help, but she shook her head. But, no time for wondering.

"Watch out!" Mondo called, facing the direction the attack came from.

Zaha noticed too and caught the blade that came his way from the right. He threw back his attacker, not impressed enough yet to shed the disguising cloak yet.

"Knowing the Vujad, they had spies around the city and they can track each other by magic. How irritating." Zaha muttered. "Mondo, Ruth, stay close to Shiru."

Zaha hit his captive in the back of the neck, instantly knocking him out and drew his sword practically in the same motion. Shiru and Mondo backed against one of the larger trees to give him room.

While Zaha had never been one to eagerly kill, he had no issues with unfair fighting. Two more tried attacking him, one he threw headfirst into a tree while the more persistent second ended up with a broken arm.

They were merely testing him though before they attacked in a group. In a moment of unexpected skill, one of his attackers knocked his sword out of his hand and one of the larger soldiers managed to twist his arm behind his back at that very moment.

One of them mockingly said : "Just tricks. You aren't even remotely prepar—"

His words were cut short as from under Zaha's cloak his two wings appeared, knocking back all around him in one motion. The other soldiers drew back in fearful recognition. Now they know whom exactly they faced their collective response could effectively be summed up with : "_We are so screwed_".

Zaha was a bit peeved at once again having to fight in a tiny space and actually _needing_ his wings in a ground-battle against humans. With all the trees he couldn't even use his fire here. Then again, that just might make it more interesting.

"Yes, definitely not prepared at all." he said with a fanged grin.

A somewhat panicked reply came : "Try this!" One of them threw a bomb but Ruth caught it, disappeared for a blink of an eye and returned without it. An explosion was heard somewhere in the distance.

"Don't worry, was an empty area." he said sheepishly. "I totally agree we're not prepared by the way." he then added in a mock desperate voice.

Another combined wave attack came, which he deflected as well. Vujad weren't much of a challenge for a full fledged demon without their bombs and even as advanced humans they lacked the physical strength to cut through his armor.

Zaha pinned one jumping soldier's head between a tree and two outstretched fingers, forming a small Black Photon between his remaining fingers.

"This could have been less painful if you people just sat still." he said before electrocuting him.

The soldier spasmed a moment before dropping unconscious to the ground. Zaha warded of the next attack from the right, but from the corner of his eyes noticed that the unconscious soldier was removed by one of the others. This was strange, knowing the Vujad's values .... or their lack there off. Someone apparently was eager to keep things secret.

At that moment, a white gate opened and Rokuna hopped out, only looking vaguely worried. There was no surprise on her face and she said nothing when Mondo called her name happily.

Rokuna quickly went over the auras. Most of these soldiers were already linked to someone, if ever so mildly. She had no mind for another psychic confrontation and focused on the single one that wasn't under one of these willing contracts. He was knocked out at the moment, making it all the easier.

"Zaha, please keep them back, I need to concentrate."

"No need to ask." he said casually and batted away an attacker from above with his wings, sending him crashing into another.

"Do be quick though, it's him they want back!"

Shiru then raised the _Dark Voltage_ around her and the children the moment Rokuna was in range. There, the girl folded her arms to concentrate.

_Vujad_. A single eye that looked like drawn with Indian ink. It was behind everything in his mind.

First she noticed the confusion on her lack of establishing a contract. Then the resistance came, but he resisted the wrong thing, all she had to do was read his aura. With only his subconscious to object, it wasn't very difficult to get in tune.

Location, location .....

Yes, they had the dragon head, these people of the Vujad Tribe had been hired to protect the 'mission' since as humans they lacked the connections to tribes in the dark realm and they were disorganized, easier to control with money and most importantly, most of them lacked names. She couldn't quite tell why this was important though.

Then she learned something that troubled her greatly.

The Terror Dragon's head was alive. This man had seen it, a few images of it passed her mind, it was nauseating. Involuntarily she opened her eyes and raised a hand to her mouth, though she didn't throw up. The memories turned into a vision of the dragon as it voicelessly called for the now gone master that it hated yet needed.

A single eye here too, but this carried the red mask over it. She wanted to see no more, but pity held her mind's eye.

The way they kept it alive ....

Before she could fall any deeper, a rokumon flickered into existence under the soldier and blue hands dragged him through it. The whole thing happened too quickly for anyone to respond.

"- _How regrettable that I have to come this far. Can't trust these humans to do their job one bit_. -" Rokuna vaguely noticed someone say, apparently from out of that circle.

Then it was over.

The moment the soldiers saw their target was gone they all vanished, even taking along their injured. Zaha let them go, not seeing a need to pursue anyone, or rather, not wanting to leave his friends behind unguarded.

The wind may have howled a little the entire time, but only now did she hear it. Rokuna sank to her knees and heard herself breathe in the same rhythm.

"Rokuna-chan, are you alright?"

_No._

She looked up at Mondo, his expression grew more worried when he recognized the same absent expression he had seen when they had visited Arash.

"Rokuna-chan?"

Suddenly she became irritable again, shrugging off his hand on her shoulder.

"Did you find it?" Zaha's question didn't register immediately.

"No .... "

"Then we're back at no leads." Shiru said softly.

"Not necessarily. Rokuna-chan, can't you still try to link with that guy?"

She shook her head.

"I can't sense him anymore."

"Oh ... well, too bad. I guess you only had a short link. It's o—"

"That's not it. They killed him." Her voice was barely audible.

Only now her tears came.

**· · · · · · ·**


	5. Certain Trust

**· · · · · · ·**

**· Chapter V · Certain Trust ·**

**· · · · · · ·**

_But you hate the red mask too. Why do you hide behind it?_

**· · · · · · ·**

They had stayed in the park until Theta came for them, reporting that they could not return to her home, thank you very much, as there were elves now.

The group went to an associate of Theta, a rather fat goat-headed demon who complained over a lot of things and was in a perpetually bad mood, but wouldn't have anyone suggest he kick out Theta now that she was 'on record'.

He possessed several large hangars, in which the group had taken to hiding. Dark, impersonal places lit only by candles and a high row of small colored windows, but they were spacious and had many concealed areas.

Shiru set down two cups of herbal tea before the children.

"Thanks." Mondo murmured. "But I'm not thirsty."

"Me neither." Rokuna added from where she sat a little distance away.

"You two have to stay healthy now. It won't do once we find a new lead and you can't get up. Please, drink it." She pushed Mondo's cup a little closer. The boy sighed, raised his head from his crossed arms and reached for the cup.

"Hey, Shiru-san .... I, ehm.... have you ever regretted anything?" he asked as if he thought his question was ludicrous. Shiru would disagree.

"Certainly." she whispered.

He looked up a little surprised.

"I am blood of the heavens and for that reason I aided a war which I knew nothing about, a war that inevitably cost the lives of many innocent demons. I did not speak out or try to change anything before I lost those dearest to me, that is what I regret." Her thoughts pulled her in for a moment, but she quickly returned to reality.

"Mondo, you didn't know, you had no way of knowing."

"But that doesn't change the fact people died who were only trying to protect their city. And I was on the side of the guy throwing around the bombs." His head dropped to the table again and he hid his face behind his arms. "You also meant well, right? Yet you also regret it."

"That is what keeps our conscience awake."

With that she stood up, but stopped once more to look at Rokuna. Shiru had noticed Rokuna kept a distance from Mondo ever since the incident, her arms uncharacteristically crossed or one hand hooking the other arm. The child looked at her briefly and said :

"It's okay. You can rejoin Zaha now."

Almost she said something, but swallowed words she didn't even know. So she left them at peace and set down with Zaha and Ruth.

"They're broken." she told them sadly. "They're just little children, they should not be in this mess."

"Mondo blames himself again. Off course it bothers Rokuna as well." Zaha said matter-of-factly.

Shiru didn't miss that there was an undertone to the second part of his statement, one that Zaha usually did not have. In fact, the second part was a rather suspiciously pointless statement. She looked over at the children again, her eyes resting on Rokuna again who had pulled up her legs and had crossed her arms over her knees.

Alright. What was going on?

Theta suddenly popped up in their corner, jumping down from the behind them crates and immediately helping herself to the tea they'd been given.

"Ai sad folk!" she said, optimistic as ever. "How are the kids doing?"

"They just witnessed a massacre. How do you think they're doing?" Zaha said sharply.

"They'll grow tougher as time goes by." Theta said cheerfully. "Anyway, I'll catch two bugs in one trap, cause as it stands, we are one little step farther than before : we know the Vujad are involved."

"How is that gonna help us?" Ruth asked.

Theta just smiled mischievously.

**· · · · · · ·**

The next day after some poor attempts at sleeping, Mondo and Rokuna went along with Theta to a restaurant in one of the darkest streets. Or maybe it was a giant bar, or a wine hall with biscuits. Something like that. Theta argued a bit with the door guard, assuring him her company really wasn't as young as they looked, it was just a factory flaw.

Once inside, it was hard to look around since they were tiny and most visitors were huge demons, trolls or minotaurs and many smaller creatures trying to find their way through that. But eventually they reached a table with unoccupied seats and climbed onto one of the giant chairs, which has small ladders aside. The back of the chair could be clapped out to create extra sitting plateaus for the smaller visitors.

An imp not unlike Ruth popped up soon enough and took their orders, or rather, Theta's orders, who didn't pay much heed to Mondo and Rokuna's assurance they weren't hungry.

"Ai, it's okay to look somber, that will only serve my plan all the better actually." she told them after the waitress was gone.

Rokuna just crossed her arms on the table and waited till it was over. The crowd, while cheerful, placed a heavy weight on her and what Theta was up to somehow felt unpleasant. Food eventually was delivered, but she hardly noticed. Mondo ate with long teeth, his thoughts constantly with the events of yesterday.

There was a sneaky thought in his mind wondering why Rokuna had taken so long, had it been different if she had come back earlier?

Right now she hated that it was Mondo least of all in the world that she could close off from.

"Oh, you wouldn't believe what my poor cousin has been through!" Theta had started a conversation with some acquaintances of her, putting up a fairly loud voice all of the sudden. Here it went.

"So he got lost and someone delivered him to the guard station. All fine and well, till the Monitor shows up and can't read Mouns mind cause he's got a split root element and those idiots haven't adjusted their magic for that, so they think he's a spy! They pay lots of attention to that while ignoring this _actually dangerous _prisoner they got. Honestly, they had a VUJAD prisoner and they let their eye off of him for some disoriented kid! Guess what happened? Now that nobody's watching him, that filthy human escapes right away!"

Horrified replies came from around, the others at the table now payed attention as well and agreed. Theta was satisfied with this result and decided to put on another spoonful.

"So off course the moment that human breaks out, he seeks out the Monitor to kill him so he won't be tracked. And where was the Monitor? With my cousin!"

Now she had the whole table's attention.

"What is she doing?" Mondo whispered.

"So that soldier notices Moun here has gate magic and forces him to help him escape. You might have heard rumor of the Guard chasing a Pegasus? Well, that was Moun having a knife at his throat. And now they use that as evidence that my cousin really was a spy sent to help that Vujad!"

"That little ungrown worm?" said a huge demon as he rammed down his giant cup on the table. "He wouldn't even last in a street game with my kids, and they think he'd be a member of the Vujad? I've met the Vujad Tribe in the last war, they are brutal humans bred to kill and far less sophisticated than the homunculi of our city!"

"Ai, indeed, does he look like a Vujad spy?" She lifted one of Mondo's arms and waved it up and down a bit. "And look at that scrape on his face, he only has to drop to the ground and he's already bleeding! And this is supposed to be a seasoned murderer!"

A nearby succubus laughed in contempt. "This is why I keep saying we need something more sane than those dark elves to keep our city safe! Have you guys heard of that other crazy human running around here with the Black Tango Cat? Mad, I tell you, they won't do anything about that either!"

Theta sensed a dangerous change in subject and decided to play onto the table right away.

"What I'm worried for is that that they're going to come after us now. Maybe I could fake that my cousin was replaced by someone else of the same serial number for the Guard, yeah, that should work out. But what if that Vujad decides Moun needs to be eliminated for having seen his face?"

"We'll keep an eye open! No filthy human is gonna get to anyone in our district!" said the same demon of earlier. Others joined in eagerly.

Rokuna understood now. These people were part of the so called black market, as Theta was, they functioned akin to a family in that they stuck up for each other. As she told this to Mondo, she noticed his quiet discontent. He played with his food and didn't look up, only told Rokuna :

"- _This isn't fair. _-" She could feel a strange, suppressed sort of rage in him. No, maybe more like despair.

Theta continued on with her charade and Mondo's conflicted feeling deepened, Rokuna tried her best to not become crazy under the crashing waves of everything around. The hatred here for humans certainly didn't add to their sense of security, this bothered her more than Mondo's worries of Theta's lying spree.

Eventually Theta excused herself from the crowd, saying her little guests needed to go home and sleep, if they'd pass out on the street it would increase their chances of being caught by the Guard.

The moment they were out of the building and out of the streetlights, Theta's deeply concerned expression was replaced by a satisfied one, she looked practically smug.

"Ai, that was perfect! Soon the whole city is going to know there are Vujad within the wall, it will make the our enemy nervous. They'll want to know what we're up to. All we have to do is wait till one of my buddies there spots something."

She looked aside and saw nothing but gloomy faces.

"Ai, it wasn't entirely in vain, cheer up. You'll have your dragon soon!"

"That's not it." Mondo muttered.

"Then what?"

"Did you have to lie to them?"

"It's just a little white lie."

"Oh yeah? And what when the Vujad kill someone who gets too close to them?"

"Ai ai, really, a lot more folks are gonna die if you _don't _find that head, right?"

"No. It's wrong." Mondo said firmly as he raised his head and looked her in the eye. "That doesn't matter! You don't have that right anymore than I do to play with other people's lives like that!"

"Fine. Once this is over, I'll tell them the truth. As if they'd believe me."

"That doesn't make it right anymore than it is now. They don't know there's more than one of them, they're not prepared!"

Theta just rolled her eyes. "They're freaking demons, they can handle more than one those puny humans, really."

"There are weak demons too! And the Vujad aren't normal humans, I've seen them fight."

Theta disdainfully looked at some random lamppost, trying to convey this was getting a boring conversation. But Mondo continued relentlessly :

"They have a right to know the truth, then we'll see who is really willing to help us. It's not really their choice to get involved like this!"

Theta sighed. "Aaai, you folks really take this Knight stuff seriously, don't you? Look, if we were to tell them there's more than one, it wouldn't be credible that you escaped."

"I don't care, if we're going to act like-"

"Like the villains? Even if playing the hero costs lives? You'd just go honor before reason cause that's the 'good' thing to do? Spread love and flowers everywhere by making the right example? You can't change the world like that."

"We're here exactly because we _can _change things!"

Theta stopped and turned sharply, Mondo nearly bumped into her.

"Not everything is going to be solved with a bright yellow bird thing of hope that gathers the denizens of the world around them in a glowy circle of unity! If it does, where's the Saint Star Dragon now?"

Her eyes shimmered red as she looked at the children through narrowed lids, any semblance of the easygoing Theta was gone.

"You two are going to die sooner or later unless you accept reality will not bend to your idealism."

She then noticed Rokuna's bitter expression.

"Got anything to say, greeny?"

But she didn't even look at Theta.

No more words were exchanged, but the conversation wasn't over yet. The moment they were back in the lair, Mondo said : "But why that whole crowd? Don't you have more sneaky connections?"

Theta gritted her teeth. "No, I do _not _have sneaky connections for spotting masters of stealth. I have sneaky connections for food delivery, Guard inspection times," she listed them down on her fingers, "smuggle routes, haggling settings, product misplacement and a whole bunch of things, but not for terrorists. That's _way _beyond my league!"

"That's the same for your friends there, isn't it? It's your responsibility to take care of the consequences of what you got them into!"

"The consequences? How about the people that died when you freed that Vujad soldier?"

Ouch.

"We didn't know about that!" But his voice lacked any determination, it was more a plea than anything.

Theta laughed bitterly. "Exactly. Just like you don't know how many will die when you don't take risks like this. If they take that dragon head elsewhere, it might take months if before you find it again, if they don't destroy it to begin with! By that time all those people you're trying to save in the labyrinths are gonna be dead."

"I don't want to get them involved in my mess." Mondo whispered in a voice that had lost all power.

"Well, then-" Before she could continue, she was violently pulled at her ponytail.

"Stop it now, Theta."

Zaha's sudden appearance caught her off guard, she stepped back in momentary trepidation.

"You're not being paid to argue." Zaha said with a tone that told her the argument most definitely was over now.

She glared at him, but then turned slammed the nearest door behind her.

Mondo sank against a stack of wood. Rokuna still stood at the door through which they had entered.

Zaha looked from one to another. "What happened?"

"She rounded up a whole lot of her friends, telling them to look out for a Vujad that might kill her cousin." Rokuna said softly. "But she didn't tell them there is more than one."

Mondo seemed on the verge of crying. "They're gonna get killed, they're not prepared. It's not our right to get them involved, they don't know. Right, Rokuna-chan?"

And there he went. Zaha felt at loss again.

"Yes." Rokuna said with a small voice.

She suddenly walked past Mondo and deeper into the hall, till she was running past the stacks of wood and powder. Zaha looked after her for a moment till she disappeared into the seemingly endless hall.

_I want no more!_

Mondo knew exactly where his line was and he had inevitably called up the question Rokuna never hoped to answer in front of him. She didn't want to think about anymore.

She noticed Shiru early enough to avoid running into her.

"Rokuna?"

Rokuna tried saying hello, but her voice was stuck in her throat. She saw herself through the angel's eyes : worn down, teary eyes and pretty much in need of a hug. Shiru needed no additional senses to understand what was required.

Without words, Shiru gently picked her up. Rokuna closed her arms around Shiru's neck, feeling like a child in a mother's arms.

"It's okay to cry. Never become numb in the face of suffering." Shiru whispered.

She spread her wings, bringing her to the little area that was their new sleeping place. There, she sat her down on one of the beds, staying knelt down so she could look the girl in the eyes. But Rokuna didn't let go yet and hid her face in Shiru's hair.

"I won't become numb." Shiru didn't know how much of a promise that was.

For Mondo, the deepest fear had manifested when Saki let go of his hand. For Zaha, it was what he could be and had been. For Shiru, it was what she might fail to be for others. Rokuna idly wondered what she herself feared the most.

She let go of Shiru and looked into her eyes. "Shiru-san, the prophecy of the Saint Star Dragon and our role in it .... who sets up the prophecies in this world?"

Shiru sadly shook her head. "I don't know. Why do you ask?" Rokuna didn't know why herself.

The angel already suspected this had something to do with what Rokuna had hinted at, but before the girl had even a chance to get caught up in words, Mondo and Zaha entered.

As Mondo noticed Rokuna had been crying too, he thought : "- _I can't be strong for her now ... again_. -"

**· · · · · · ·**

She dreamed that night.

_Do you hate Redda too? The red mask is over you._

The Terror Dragon didn't answer. It was never meant to answer anyone but its master and its master had betrayed it by letting it die, so he may use its body as a host for Oroboros. Nevertheless, the Terror Dragon had the devotion all master dragons knew. It was as if it couldn't do anything else.

As she stood immaterially in her dream scape, Rokuna wondered whether the dragon was the Terror Dragon because of that devotion, or did becoming the Terror Dragon cause that devotion?

Did I become who I am because I was born with something useful, or was I given this talent because I was chosen?

This, the dragon could answer even less.

There was something else.

Something that felt threatening, like the walls closing in. She looked around to the imagined hangar, the walls were far away and unmoving. Still ... walls ....

Exactly. It was like the steady collective aura of the people in this city, on smaller scale and somehow approaching. She thought it over and realized that subconsciously she must have sensed it long before, but only in the dream did it become clear enough.

Reading the world with her sixth sense was pretty much akin to using the Internet, if she knew where to look getting information was as simple as receiving an email or clicking a bookmarked website. But sometimes, one heard references to things and one had to do research to find the appropriate information in the middle of a thousand pages in a web searcher.

The many auras in the city created a buzz between her and whatever this probably relevant information was, she had to plow through it to find the unknown root of the rumor. With a dreamscape as her vessel, this was a little easier however.

The disembodied head twisted a little and looked in a certain direction, she followed its gaze.

Under an immense spider was the pillar that held together the two halves of the city. The more she looked, the closer she came.

A vague image formed through the walls, collected from what a large group inside the pillar was seeing. They were gathered in a royal hall of sorts, surrounding a heightened platform on which a speaker stood amidst five incense pillars.

Stark blue legs, she seemed like grown from coral or volcanic rock, perhaps. Her torso was mostly light gray and she had huge horns on her head, curling upward, bright orange hair around it and by no means what humans would consider beautiful, she was more bulky than slender. Twirling behind her like smoke was a cape or maybe wings that consisted of deformed matter with an eyeball here and there.

Was this Pandæmonium? No, wrong, this was someone else of high power. Since Pandæmonium was anchored, he had substitute rulers. This was one of them and a rather charismatic one, the way she drew the crowd of ranked citizens to her.

_Malakoda. _That was the name on all their tongues, until she ordered their silence and took the word herself.

"I do not know what these Mon Colle Knights want here, but they are not welcome!"

As a lightning bolt, her mistake hit her. In careless arrogance, she hd told Monitor that she was a Mon Colle Knight. What had she been thinking?

What Malakoda said stirred quite a heavy reaction, as most knew the Knights to have saved the world, demons included. But as the demoness had continued speaking, their opinions had been swayed.

Like a droning voice in her head, Malakoda explained that the Knights' salvation of the demon realm had only been because they must have known it was needed to complete the gate to the heaven of the Saint Star Dragon. She farther argued that the angels had conquered Kharon and while it only appeared as if they wanted to free the prisoners, they might be up to more. Here was evidence : the Mon Colle Knights had replaced themselves with fake counterparts meanwhile were looking for the new Darkness Item, and they themselves had come to Pandæmonium for reasons related to speeding up this cleansing of Kharon.

"And here they are, sneaking into our city and breaking free former members of the Pontif's legions! Several members of our Guard as well as a number of innocent citizens have died in this incident. I and surely many of you would like to know why _exactly_ this was necessary. Yes, many of us are likely to meet lost loved ones across the prisoners freed from Kharon. But don't forget, if they actually cared for that they would have asked us for our help. No, they are here specifically without our consent, for there is something they hide from us!"

The crowd agreed loudly, roars and shrieks filling the high hall in an echo that was audible even outside, if ever so dimly. But Rokuna could hear them. They feared rumors and lies and .... some truths too.

"I heard they can empower a monster beyond the limitations of their set energy .... what's gonna happen if they do that to an army of angels?"

"It's only a matter of time before Elysium and the Pontif side with each other again, then they'll be before our door!"

"Monster Collection Knights .... as if they could own us!"

Rokuna felt her heartbeat increase to a near state of panic.

This demon lady was right ..... they hadn't even tried asking the government of Pandæmonium for assistance. When inquiring about the city, everyone had said they needed to go undercover and they had done so without question.

Malakoda raised her arm and raised it, the crowd silenced.

"We may be useless to the world again, but we have no intention to relinquish existence. The Sixgate is eternal and ultimately balance will always be restored.... but we now know there are seven pieces to the gate, counting the root realm of Time along. Where does that leave our element?"

That was it. They feared the appearance of the so called 'Saint Star Children' meant they would be purged one way or another, either by death of conversion.

_No, we don't think that! We won't destroy you!_

How much of that fear was true, though?

Rokuna was already aware of the issues the discriminative issues the angels had, but she had never thought about how deep rooted this went. But, as far as she and all her friends were concerned, they had love to all elements and no specific allegiance for any of them.

Believing a false rumor could cause great destruction, Zaha could tell tales about that. And now, their thoughtless actions had provided seeming evidence for such a rumor.

"What if you don't know the consequences beforehand?" was the echo of Theta's voice.

**· · · · · · ·**

In movies, people always woke up with a startle from nightmares to illustrate their fear, but actual nightmares are not always eager to let one go. It took Rokuna a long time to struggle out of a terrible half-sleep.

Once she was finally clear, she sat up and stayed like that for a while. Then she felt out to see who was awake. Mondo, Shiru and Ruth slept, Theta was gone. Zaha, as usual, was awake and standing guard. Did that guy never sleep?

Oh what the heck.

She found him helping a few goblins working on a stack.

"Hey Zaha, does Pandæmonium have a vice ruler named Malakoda?"

He paused to look at her, curious at the random question. "It does. What about it?"

She hooked her right arm with her left hand. ".... I think I made a big mistake."

"Hm." He dropped a sack he'd been holding to the floor and turned to the goblins around him. "Going now."

They distanced themselves before she poke.

"They know the Mon Colle Knights are here."

She told him briefly about what she had found out in the dream and then about her error in front of the Monitor. Zaha just listened and when she came to the end of it, all he said was, somewhat irritably :"Well, isn't that great."

"That's all you're going to say?"

"Heh, if you want a lecture on your failures, I don't have much to tell you. I tend to be at the receiving end of that, not the giving. But it's not normal for you to make such a stupid error, that much I know."

"I don't know either why I was like that, feeling so overconfident." She laughed nervously. "I certainly don't feel confident now. It was terrifying, so much powerful demons all angry like that .... "

"Hm. I'm pretty sure me and Shiru can handle them, and if not, you guys can just summon something to back us up." Zaha folded his wings and walked off. He presumed he didn't have to tell her he meant to go to the others now, indeed he didn't.

"That's not just it." Rokuna continued as she walked after him, or more like ran, even with his deliberately small paces.

He stopped for a moment and looked back. "Thinking about what I did when I got the way I was or about what will happen to you when confronted with them?"

"Well .... " She looked away. "Both. Even if I tried, I could not calm down such a large group, I'd probably become .... useless. And yes, then there's what they might do for feeling threatened."

Zaha continued walking again. "Hm, I've never fought more than one Archdemon at the time. If you want honesty, yes, we could be in deep trouble."

From the side, she saw him smirk.

"Why don't you worry about not becoming a wreck and I worry about any fighting that might come our way?"

Rokuna nodded sadly.

"So what do we do now?" she asked softly, though she knew he couldn't give a satisfactory answer.

"What can we do? Except for being stuck here, hope that Theta's friend doesn't rat us out and wait for the Vujad to show their faces again."

They woke the others the inform them and Rokuna wasn't too surprised when Ruth threw a small tantrum over how she could screw up so much. Mondo actually managed an encouraging laugh, telling her he'd made mistakes too, bigger ones. He somehow seemed to become more determined to make up for his own error, but Rokuna couldn't see it the same way.

Hours passed by till a day's count was reached. Theta hopped around a lot on the streets away off, Ruth sometimes accompanied her. Mondo eventually befriended some of the workers and frantically started helping them with whatever, as long as he could keep himself occupied. Rokuna feigned sleep.

The walls didn't close in, they really didn't, she knew that. Still she liked to imagine that, it gave a sort of visual, something to focus on to understand herself. Like wildfire a story spun out in the city beyond those walls. Theta's smaller scaled rumor of the Vujad also became stronger due to this till many didn't know anymore what to believe.

A day passed, and then another half day, leaving Rokuna to play with a thousand puzzle pieces of information.

So it came that she did not notice Theta was hiding something until the homunculus returned to the establishment and was speaking to her friend up front. She was currently in the distant store before the packhouses, but now she was talking about it to someone, Rokuna could tell.

The Basilisk was native to Vujad's country, one of the creatures the Vujad had honored as guardian animal and it was the root deity of the dark eye that was their mark. As such, they could use a Basilisk eye to 'see' the dark eye mark. It worked in reverse too. A group of eager teenagers had spotted a Vujad Soldier who was inquiring for information about something, likely the rumors of the Mon Colle Knights ..... the children of the demon father they'd met at that table. They had been spotted right back.

Now they were dead.

Theta came by the packhouse too and talked briefly with Ruth, requesting him help on something. She told him about how maybe they could obtain a Basilisk eye, she had heard from one of her buddies as the restaurant one had been sold recently. She did not tell about how and from whom she had learned this.

Theta was an excellent liar, Rokuna had to say. Even Ruth was deceived.

She was also surprised to find a hint of shame and regret, one she had not noticed in Theta before.

**· · · · · · ·**

Several meals passed. They tasted of nothing to her.

**· · · · · · ·**

She observed Mondo as he saved a goblin that had slipped off a crate it was supposed to help level down. It wasn't any sort of fall the goblin would have been unable to survive, maybe get a broken bone at most. For her and him, that didn't matter. So why were his reflexes better today while hers were so slow?

But she found she could still offer a smile when the goblin thanked them overly devoted.

**· · · · · · ·**

If she and Mondo were born to be the channels for the Saint Star Dragon and all this was part of a prophecy .... and they kept their powers beyond the fulfillment of that one prophecy, did that mean there was another part they were meant to play?

**· · · · · · ·**

Outside, the rumors had mutated into too many shapes to distinguish, till they only shared a few elements in common : Vujad Soldiers and hostility.

**· · · · · · ·**

The head was still in the city, she could tell now. They couldn't move it easily due to the life support system. Maybe she ought to tell Mondo about that, so he wouldn't be too horrified by it when they arrived. But she didn't feel like it and instead looked at the gargoyles far above again. Sometimes they looked back down. This didn't mean she was insane though.

Still too much time to think.

**· · · · · · ·**

She understood Theta a little better now. Theta believed in fate. How odd.

Arash had asked them whether they meant to change the world. Even farther back, the Flame Angel had asked them the very same thing too and before that, the Wave Angel had wanted to know what they meant to do with the six items that would connect the worlds.

What indeed?

Then she thought of Zaha and Shiru. They had likely been meant to be there as well, ..... were the circumstances that brought them away from their home part of the plan too? And what about her own sixth sense becoming what it was? Did that have a purpose too?

To what extend was the suffering prescribed in the whole 'destiny and fate' deal?

In the farthest corner of her mind, she imagined hearing laughter. Sadly, she knew it was only that, imagination. Reda wasn't there, only she herself.

**· · · · · · ·**

Three hazy days later, their host called for them. Theta was waiting in a lobby, anxiety waving from her. Mondo reached her first.

"Theta-san, is everything alright?"

"Depends." she said. "How quick can you all move out?"

As it turned out, a mob had caught a Vujad Soldier somewhere in the east districts. Theta managed to omit telling Mondo why exactly a whole mob had formed, only mentioning something about a Basilisk eye and how they had duplicated it.

Curious, Rokuna read the information she wasn't broadcasting in her aura, peeking into her actual mind. Cloning. After the death of those teens, the community put some money together to get a bunch of Basilisk eyes cloned, by Arash nonetheless, which they had carried around since.

Rokuna sighed. She felt like she should tell this to Mondo, but Theta had a point when she thought it would only heighten the tension. Right?

"Zaha, Shiru, get your cloaks. You're all gonna have to come along as well." Theta said.

Mondo drew a gate large enough for all of them and allowed Theta to pinpoint the destination. They landed in a an empty somewhat filthy backstreet.

Around the corner, a large group of demons and other creatures had gathered. In their midst lay a Vujad Soldier on the ground, held down by the hoof of one of the citizens. Close by was another one, dead.

They approached and were quickly noticed.

"Theta? You're here quickly. Who are they?" asked one of the demons, looking at the cloaked up angels.

"Escorts Ephgor gave me." Theta casually said.

Rokuna came last and let everything wash over her. Hatred, fury, blind will to destroy ... so uncomplicated. The Vujad Soldier amidst them almost seemed like the goodguy, being way more collected and still thinking clearly. Yet, that was their enemy, protecting the ones who had stolen the head. He seemed so tiny in between all the other distracting auras.

"There were more than one! Your cousin was lucky he escaped before the rest came." said another demon.

"Is this the guy?" Mondo was asked. He didn't immediately respond, only looked around in atypical uncertainty.

"Moun?" she called back. Mondo walked up and looked at the face of the soldier.

"Not him."

_Off course not._

"Too bad, it's not one of the group that killed my kids either. I would have liked to get my hands on one of the bastards that killed them, but hey, it's still a Vujad."

Mondo's eyes widened as he learned what Rokuna already knew. Then he understood what was going to happen.

"- _Rokuna-chan? They're going to lynch him. We have to stop them! _-" he said, expecting her to hear him. When she didn't respond, he looked aside to find that eerie vacant expression on her face once more.

"I bet they spread that silly rumor about your guests being the Mon Colle Knights." said yet another member of the crowd. "Our Theta wouldn't mingle with those filthy humans!"

Like animals ..... no, exactly _like humans _they flocked together to take out their hatred on something.

Rokuna's eyes narrowed.

The soldier coughed as he tried to speak, it took a few attempts before he managed to get out his words.

"They .... they _are_ the Mon Colle Knights."

"Shut up!" A hard stomp on the back caused him to cringe.

"Ai ai guys, keep him awake! We need to know where the others are!" Theta called as she stepped forward, her hands in a 'halt' gesture.

"She's right! Let's beat it out of him before they kill anyone else!"

"No!"

They all turned to Mondo as he ran forward.

"You can't do that, that's wrong!"

"Wrong?"

The crowd burst out in laughter. Theta sighed dramatically and rolled her eyes.

"Forgive my cousin, he had an idealistic programmer. I'll get him out of here and-"

A hand was on her shoulder, she turned to see Shiru.

"We'll take it from here." she said.

"Huh?"

She had barely finished speaking and the first of the crowd slumped down, clutching her stomach. Zaha stood aside of the demon, what little was visible of his face showed anger.

"He will be questioned, but we will do it our way." Shiru said loudly. Her commanding voice took aback the crowd, but only a moment. The tallest stepped forward and said :"Oh really? Some cheap workers of a second rate smuggler aren't gonna-"

She stretched out her hand. There wasn't even a flash visible to anyone but her target, but said target was overcome by a wave of dizziness and nausea. He collapsed.

"I'm sorry. He may need help walking for a while." Shiru said.

"And now everyone, clear away!" Zaha called sharply.

The immediate damage these two could do held off a direct rebuke.

"What is this about?" asked the father of the killed. "We just want to know-"

"They are the Mon Colle Knights for real, are they?" another one yelled.

Mondo had really had it now and pulled the band and bandaid away from his head. While his hair was still dyed, the red gem on his forehead and his human ears said enough.

"You just want to know? So do we! We need the dragon head they are hiding!" he pointed at the Vujad Soldier, still stuck under a hoof. "People are dying, but you can't just do-"

"Guys, this is really stupid." Theta said. "You could have just let them torture the guy while you read his mind. You and your morals."

The crowd broke in roars and demands for explanation. They felt betrayed, now all too willing to believe the lies. _Like humans they are_, Rokuna thought, _they only see what they want to see. We're so alike._

Several of them lunged forward, trying to grab Theta and her company. Theta herself didn't even resist, but the others wouldn't have anything of it. Mondo jumped back and Zaha dislodged an arm before he drew his sword.

In the confusion, the Vujad soldier reached for a hidden knife and jabbed it in the leg on him, causing enough pain to get free. Rokuna was focused on him however. Almost like watching TV and seeing close ups, Rokuna saw his intent to reached for his comrade, who carried concealed explosives.

"Bomb!" she screamed instinctively.

The soldier jumped over the crowd and threw the bomb right in the direction of the Mondo, as he did so he briefly crossed eyes with Rokuna. She stood farther away, still at the corner of the street.

"- _I'm angry with you. _-" she told him in the blink of an eye. Then she smiled falsely before telepathically telling Zaha this bomb was of small scale, but Ruth would die if he'd try to teleport it away right now.

Zaha unfolded his wings and jumped in the trajectory of the bomb, there he exploded it with a small _Black Photon_ attack. Shiru was behind him the same instant, raising a protective shield to catch the back-draft. The explosive power was redirected to all sides, tearing down part of the walls. They themselves were thrown back, mostly unharmed. Zaha immediately leaped to the air, looking for the soldier amidst the dust and rubble.

In the same mist, the group of demons spied something white and feathery. Any intent of wanting to fight and kill something melted by the panic the sight of her wings caused.

"A holy angel!"

And then they spotted Zaha in the half-dark above them.

"There are angels in Pandæmonium!" they cried out. "Angels in our city!"

They scattered out into the streets, taking along their hatred and their panic into what soon would be the whole of the city. Rokuna crawled onto her feet, felt her heart beating too much. This whole city was going to be on their trail now .....

They were running out of time. Soon they'd face something her powers weren't any help against and their target was preparing to remove the head from the city. Then it would all be in vain and they would have failed everyone. Those that died would have died _for nothing_.

She sought out the mind of the Vujad Soldier, found him climbing a few buildings away. Linking to Zaha, she directing him to that location. The dark angel was on his way at once, it was criminally easy for him to return with their target.

"Zaha! Hold him, I can't have him be distracted now."

He complied. As before, he held this soldier by the back of the neck, but now lifted him above the ground, he himself did not land either. The soldier clawed at his fingers while Zaha, unbothered, kept an eye of the surrounding for any gates appearing.

"Rokuna-chan, wait, what if this one is killed too? Shouldn't we first figure out what to do about that?" Mondo objected when he realized what was up.

Her expression confused him more than he already was. "Rokuna-chan?"

"We don't have time. I want this to be over."

With that, she took the prayer pose she was used to take for concentration. Invisibly, she grabbed the aura of the soldier and reached for his mind. He didn't even notice immediately, only focusing on his escape attempts.

Useless glimpses of information fluttered past Rokuna, only the surface of his mind came by.

_Escape, escape, serve purpose, location, I need to know location!_

But the soldier was no fool, he soon noticed thoughts came forth in his mind that he did not call for. It was akin to being under a summoning contract, yet there was no contract on him.

"- _Oh, no, this isn't just magic. It's much deeper._ -" she answered with a sweet, taunting vibe.

Now he was aware of her. He looked at her unmoving form, she made no secret that the little girl indeed was the person breaking into his mind.

"- _You know, I used to be a happy girl who laughed a lot and liked pink things and could tune out with reality into the dimension of love bubbles. I'm going to be that girl again. You're in my way._ -"

With those words, her spirit grew a thousand tiny eyes into the mind of the soldier and if he would not let her find, there was a similar number of hands to claw their way through. She became like a toddler plucking wings off of dragonflies till she found one that responded the way she wanted it to.

There, the memories of the location .... now she needed to know how to reach it from their current location.

"- _Let me see then you may go!_ -"

He didn't believe her. At that moment, a rokumon appeared under the dangling feet of the Vujad.

"Stupid, stupid, stupid." muttered a familiar voice. "Can't pull them by a name!"

"Oh no you don't." Zaha held aside the human and used his free hand to blast the portal with another _Black Photon_. The gate disappeared before it was hit and the energy broken on the stones.

Rokuna didn't even flinch, a deceptive calmness over her. Within her mind she raged, clawing deeper but always there was that single inked eye, blocking her vision. He concentrated on it with all his might, a shield it became. It did not deter her will.

She soon stood before a mirror and her reflection was that of the soldier. All around where an infinite number of other mirrors, all with dim reflections, but none of them mattered. She asked the reflection of the person she was not why he was so desperate to protect the secret. Nothing in his entire mind betrayed any care for what happened to the head? So, why?

"- _What else can I do? I was raised to destroy and I do not even have a name. Nothing to live for. Loyalty is the only value I can afford. _-"

" - _It is not for me. I have people to save. Now let me see!_ -"

Her many hands took hold of the mirrors edges, cracks started to appear until it broke into splinters and they flew all around her as she walked through an empty gate. The man's reflection was still before her, moving away.

In the outside world another rokumon appeared and the reflection merged with reality, looking down through another portal. She opened her eyes just in time to see it appear, this time somewhat to their side. Too late she realized what sort of rokumon it was, not a passage sort but .....

A tendril of fire shot out and headed right for the soldier. Mondo instinctively leaped to Rokuna to pull her away from the flames.

Heat and screaming filled the whole area and disappeared as quick as it had come.

Hands. Feathers ... beyond that, Zaha's silhouette against the dark brown sky. He let fall the incinerated body, clutching his now free hand.

Bit by bit, fragments of the solid world fell into place around her again. Emotions of concern hit her next as Shiru noticed Zaha was injured, horror then as Mondo realized this man had been killed too.

_Another one died, another on died ...._

Involuntary she took a hold of his arm.

"Can it stop now?" she noticed her own lips saying, but it was Mondo's words she heard.

"Rokuna!"

And that was Zaha's voice.

"What's wrong?"

And that was Mondo's voice.

She let go of Mondo and stood up, she needed a moment to discard the feeling of her skin burning away and crossed her arms across her chest.

"I know where it is." she whispered.

One last piece of the solid world announced itself as she spoke, a trickle of blood running out of the corner of her mouth. She had bit her tongue, but the pain seemed perfectly insignificant to what she had experienced when the human before her died. This wasn't far off nor a painless death.

So why wasn't she crying now? Maybe it will happen later, like before. She waited for it.

Theta didn't wait.

"Aaaaai, that was it, then." she said.

"Oh yeah, you did great .... let's go!" Ruth said, popping up from his hiding spot. The imp's voice however lacked the usual spirit as he beheld the corpse and then Shiru as she tried to help Zaha's hand heal.

"Go? How about no? You know the location of your dragon head. I did my job, you're on your own now."

"What?" Ruth said, now she had his full attention. "That's not like you! Don't you wanna see the head? I bet you can pick up lots of other unique trinkets on the way!"

His encouragement fell flat. Theta knocked him on the head twice.

"No more danger for me. I don't like leaving the shadows. It's already bad enough I've got nowhere to go after this, aside of prison. I'd have you pay me by breaking me out, but you're about to be sealed outta the city. Zaha, Shiru, Ruth, you better be alive to pay me back five hundred years from now!"

With that, she turned away and ran, soon she was gone to all of them except Rokuna. To her mind's eye, Theta was not just running from danger.

**· · · · · · ·**

They retreated to the gloomy little park to sort out themselves. Rokuna had given them all a mental image of their destination and Mondo had placed the angels and Ruth under a contract so they wouldn't be summoned away from them if someone recognized them. Rokuna further told them that their enemy knew they had discovered their location and they were speeding up their evacuation.

It was an abandoned factory in a dead industrial zone at the southern edge of the city. Ruth had gone to check out the area, finding that the same magic applied there as in the labyrinths, so they could not teleport inside immediately. The nearest area they could teleport to what empty, but there was very little cover there so they had to avoid an aerial conflict lest they wanted to be seen by the citizens in the distance. To get the Guard to meddle would be troublesome, to say the least.

Rokuna shared what Ruth saw with angels, droning it in a monotone voice. Mondo sat aside of her, still in partial shock of the recent event. But out of it as he was, he didn't miss that Rokuna was profoundly unresponsive. She didn't cry or get angry, she just had that blank expression. Somehow he felt he needed to help her, even though he couldn't even cheer himself up.

"Don't, Mon-chan." she suddenly said. "I am going to be fine." There was a cold resolution in her voice that did nothing to console him. It was like she wasn't even there.

Someone else noticed a problem too. Zaha leaned against a tree and looked out across the cityscape, alert for anything that might come their way. But his thoughts were elsewhere.

"_We don't have time. I want this to be over_." she had said with an expression that looked simply mad to him. It reminded him to the way he knew he used to look down onto torment, so indifferent. Yet at the same time, she had seemed devastated after the event.

Compassion and merely perceiving others pain weren't necessarily the same thing, he had learned a long time ago. Perhaps this closing, whatever, was just her way of coping.

Yeah right. He had met himself not too long ago on that aspect as well.

A rustle of sound aside of him, Shiru appeared in his line of sight. She pulled his scorched hand once more to her for inspection, trying to see closer past the broken glove.

"I don't have enough energy to further heal this. I'll need to save what I have for the battle that will come, I'm sorry. Can you hold on?"

"Don't be, it's not my sword arm." he said softly and crossed his arms. "You've got more reason to worry about Mondo and Rokuna."

He had intended it as a neutral statement. It failed.

"I'm worried how Rokuna is doing now."

"Why do you ask specifically for her?" More fail at sounding neutral, she caught the shift of tone in his voice.

"Mondo is showing the response I expect from him in the face of such bloodshed. Rokuna is not. Zaha, if there is anything you know about what is wrong with her, please, tell me."

A year ago, Zaha would have flown away. Nowadays, he still couldn't bear her desperate I-Need-To-Know expression, except he couldn't fly away anymore either. Above that, it would not the be the first time things had gone tragically wrong over a lack of information.

What exactly was Rokuna afraid of? Abusing her power, collapsing under the weight? These were the two directions she had told him she lingered between. It felt like he was missing something.

Under Shiru's waiting eyes, it was out too quickly : "She can't turn off her sixth sense."

Rokuna hadn't been paying attention to Zaha's specific thoughts, but now that he started to express them, it became crystal clear to her. The splinters she carried along from the past days and the events in it cluttered together under command of one single emotion : anger.

Now there was direction to channel it towards. How dare he? Mondo looked up in surprise when Rokuna jumped up and ran off.

Zaha related to Shiru what Rokuna had told him and she listened quietly, her mind becoming increasingly troubled. But before she could formulate a response, Rokuna arrived from the woods.

"I told you that in confidence!" she yelled.

Not so calm red eyes met furious green eyes, he simply replied :"If you're going to keep it to yourself forever, it'll only break you down. We can't have that now, I saw what you became like an hour ago, it was like you had died yourself!"

His irritable response only fueled her aggravation, yet when she replied, her voice was thick with self-restraint : "When I tell you something in confidence, that means its nobodies business except mine and yours!"

"Oh shut up, Rokuna! I'm pretty much walking evidence of what happens when you get like that!"

"Zaha, Rokuna, calm down!" Shiru said loudly. Mondo arrived at that point.

"What's going on?" he said in this pause.

A tense silence fell, Rokuna thought she had the upper hand, but then she noticed Shiru's resolve and could not keep her from it. Oh no, that she did not want, not to have Mondo involved.

"Mondo, you know about Rokuna's sixth sense, do you not?"

"Shiru, no!" Rokuna took a few steps forward, though she had no idea what she'd do to make her stop speaking.

"She feels everything, all the time, life, death and emotions." Zaha said then.

Mondo didn't immediately understand and looked at Rokuna. "What do they mean?"

"Mon-chan, it's none of your business, and none of theirs either!"

"Then why did you ever bother talking to me about it?" Zaha asked sharply. Oh, now it was on.

"Cause you were torturing yourself over that illusion that I was afraid of you and it just was really, really ... " She clenched her hands together and glared at him. " .... irritating. I wanted you to get over it and the only way was to explain it!"

They held a sort of stare-down. Mondo and Shiru uncertainly looked from one to another.

After a while, Zaha said : "And I told Shiru because I happen to be worried about what's going to happen to you! At least they will know what's up when something goes wrong!"

Suddenly she chuckled.

"Now I get it. This is because Lark didn't tell you he was going to die, isn't it? You think that everything needs to be out on the table all the time."

Mondo tried to say something, raised his hand to Rokuna's shoulder, but Zaha had a reply ready too soon : "So what if it is? Do I really need to explain this?"

"Oh for goodness sake, stop measuring your whole life by that one event! This is hardly the same situation!"

"It's not? And what if you do collapse or something and they don't-" He didn't get a chance to finish, as the earth cracked beneath him by Rokuna's muttered spell. While only harmless and tiny shift compared to what Earth magic could do, it was enough to get Zaha off balance and into the air. Shiru and Mondo sidestepped.

"Well, they know now, do they? Thanks to you! And now what? I'll tell you what now, they're ridiculously worried! Shiru-san is mentally kicking herself for not having figured it out and Mon-chan is on the border of more depression while he's realizing what it's like for me in the labyrinths! Oh, and now that I just said that, they're getting spooked of how much I can tell about them!"

"At least they know." He hardly spoke it aloud, but Rokuna heard it and along everything in his thoughts. He was already starting to doubt himself, but Rokuna was in no mood to stop now.

"So what! They can't do anything about it! Whether or not they know doesn't affect them .... only their choices regarding me. And I told you already, I will not become the pampered ill girl who spouts prophetic nonsense while others go out and fight stuff. Nobody is suffering cause I'm not telling them I've got this problem! I don't go hurting other people over what I feel for one thing. Heck, they're not my feelings anyway!"

As she said that, she inevitably felt what her words did to Zaha. Her consideration told her to stop now, but her rage wanted him to stop, specifically, to stop feeling like this. So yet even if she knew this would only make it worse, the words kept coming.

"You betrayed my trust." She laughed softly, an unnatural vibe to it. "Oh, don't feel that way now, you've already betrayed peoples trust years ago during the war! Lark didn't leave you behind, but you left Shiru behind. What's the difference that I call you our for it another example of it?"

That broke all his will to counter-argue.

Mondo had never quite been able to overpower Rokuna's temper bursts, Shiru even less. Before, it had never been really necessarily however. Rokuna could be mean, but she never was cruel.

Rokuna almost spoke again, but instead ....

"Yikes!" She turned around, saw nothing. But she knew it was Ruth who had just poked her none too softly in the back.

When she faced Zaha again, Ruth appeared before her briefly. He answered her stare with near fury, then he vanished again to reappear at Zaha's side.

"Let's go get that Dragon Head." he told Zaha.

The dark angel's expression hardened, though Rokuna could tell nothing in his psyche really changed. "Right."

He didn't look at Rokuna again and instead addressed Mondo. "You two might need something for transport."

"Uh .... Oh, yes, I'll call for Pegasus." he muttered. He prepared his spell, but stopped to look over at his friend. But she had averted herself.

This wasn't the Rokuna that Mondo knew.

**· · · · · · ·**


	6. Child's Wish

**· · · · · · ·**

**· Chapter VI · Child's Wish ·**

**· · · · · · ·**

No more words were wasted. Mondo summoned Pegasus, informed him of the goal and nothing more through his link with him, and off they were. Then he teleported them all to the nearest available location to their target.

From a damp little street they burst forth across the plain before the factory, crossing canals and brick as they went as quickly as they could. Soon they passed into the for them portal deficient zone. Almost they reached the concealing shadow, but not soon enough.

The Vujad Soldiers swarmed out right into the open and wasted no time using their bombs in the open. Zaha was almost happy with the diversion this created for him. For once he didn't have to fight in a cramped space.

Shiru covered Pegasus and his passengers while Zaha shot hence and forth to intercept the attack. What should have been difficult was ridiculously easy. Before he even could get into the game, they suddenly retreated.

"- _Zaha, rise higher and look around. You have different enemies._ -" Rokuna told him. Zaha did so.

Far off yet, but he could see them in the darkness.

The lord Pandæmonium had summoned his Praetorian Guard. A set of demons with loyalty only to the well being of Makai's energy, only obeying Pandæmonium himself.

Deep, deep trouble, even though there were just two. Zaha had only two advantages here : he was smaller and quicker than them. But he would stand simply no chance at defeating them, not with their strength combined.

Oh well. All he needed to do was survive till they would escape. He created a circle of black fire around himself to limit their direct attack chances and prepared.

**· · · · · · ·**

Rokuna used some earth magic to break through a wall that Mondo had loosened with fire magic. Quietly they had slipped in. This may have once been a regular factory, but the place had been remodeled entirely in a labyrinthine fashion.

She could tell where the dragon head was .... but not exactly _how _to get there, as her sense was hardly precise enough to decipher something as detailed as what doors would be open when. All she could clearly perceive was an overall sense of despair and .... submission?

Now she was here, she had no issue finding the identity of her enemy. They were aware they had guests, they were working hard to detach the Dragon Head from the machine. She became curious. Why not just destroy it? Why no anxiety over getting out in time? The Vujad that served them were certainly in the belief they were covering an escape, yet the scientists only meant to bring the dragon to independence.

She hardly noticed her friends anymore as they went deeper and deeper, finding strangely little resistance.

The halls were kept becoming brighter, echoes of engines started to become louder and deeper the pounding in Rokuna's head became, till she understood the sound was in tandem with the heartbeat that the dragon should not have. A soft chant that was barely audible for her friends reflected in her mind over the sound of the machines. Clean walls that were dirty with misery.

Rokuna plowed deeper into a suffocating thick web. Yet behind her it always felt empty when compared to what was ahead. She heard them speak and wanted to ignore it, but they pleaded and surrendered and so she started to listen.

Right to be so, her group became suspicious when none of the doors were locked.

"- _Ambush, right ahead, next door._ -"

She painted a rough outline of their enemy's position into the minds of her friends, for as far as she could tell herself. Shiru had a response ready at once, but she didn't tell it, seemingly expecting Rokuna to know already. This irritated Rokuna.

"- Shiru-san, unless I deliberately break into your mind, I don't hear your superficial thoughts. You can talk to me normally. -"

"Oh, I'm sorry. Well then, I have a spell I can use to them down all down, but with that number I might hit you as well. You're going to have to stay back. Mondo, please use Nox to obscure your and her magical layer, particularly around the eyes. That should do to halt any stray rays of my light."

Mondo nodded and created a small rokumon between his hands, then spread it out across Rokuna and Ruth. Shiru folded her wings close to herself and formed a small sphere of light in her right hand. Then she walked through the small door. Just as she went, the shimmer of a rainbow appeared around her hand.

Mondo's Shadow then surrounded them and they saw no more of the room around. So they stayed till they heard the sound of bare feet.

"You can come now." said Shiru.

When Mondo and Rokuna entered the next hall, most Vujad were on the ground, spasms, some vomited, others had simply fainted. A few were still on their legs, but with their disorientation Mondo and Rokuna managed to knock them out with a few well placed kicks to the head.

Mondo looked around in amazement. "What did you do to them? Is this demon magic too?"

"No, a self-invented light spell. I don't know exactly how it works, but by showing a rapid procession of conflicting colors, this happens."

"Neat!"

Mondo was so relieved that they were able to subdue their enemy without killing them or even any blood, a shiver ran across Rokuna's back. Simultaneously, she tried to force away the nausea and disorientation from the people around her. Even if she had not been subject to the strobe light magic, she still copied the effects.

She ran to a side room and threw up. Turned away, she leaned against the wall. Oh, now things were a lot more clear. She had known all along, all along. Just didn't know she knew.

"You've convinced me." she muttered.

She saw Mondo in the door, eyes wide with concern, Shiru a few meters behind ..... oh well. She smiled at them.

"Let's go."

_Let them be disturbed about me, I don't care anymore._

There were no more enemies, only rooms and halls.

Room after halls after room after halls after room ......

_Can't cry._

Go on.

The engines stopped suddenly and the next halls were silent.

_We're here already? How odd._

A sharply lit hall with humid air, full of equipment, tubes and partially flooded. In the middle of this was what remained of the Terror Dragon.

Its head alone the size of a small house, the neck partially hidden by the angle from which they approached. It was hooked up to all sorts of pipes and machines, particularly around the area where the head had bubbled off of the body. Small lines of the fleshy blood dripped out of poorly sealed wounds. Pity wasn't so difficult an emotion to bear from her friends, as she herself shared it.

Mondo ran forward intent on cutting what he thought were restraints, stepped onto a hidden rokumon and was gone.

Panic washed over Rokuna only to be replaced by immediate relief when she learned Mondo was outside now, somewhere in the city.

"He's safe, he's safe." she said to the others and to herself.

At that moment, someone emerged opposite of the trap gate before them, a rather unimpressive sight. A thick hairless head with something akin to scales on its sides, but sans the blue skin and yellow eyes he looked human and was dressed in white, almost priest-like robes. Well, once they might have been white, now they were smudged with all sorts of mess.

The man tilted his head curiously as he saw Shiru place herself between Rokuna and him.

"An angel is wasted on a child that needs no protection."

"Balsephon." Shiru whispered.

"Oh, she recognizes me? Has she studied?"

"Yes. Have you?"

His face wrinkled up in disgust, seeming appalled that the question even needed to be asked.

"I take that as a yes. Then you should know what we came for. Now, what did you do that Mondo?"

_That boy, Mondo, he is her anchor. He cannot have the sixth sense for that reason. Her strength when she is weak, his strength when he is weak._

"Has the girl not said the boy is safe?" He shook his head. "If we cannot even evacuate the head quick enough to escape, how will they evacuate the head before Pandæmonium comes down upon them all?"

He was right. Rokuna followed his thoughts to the machines all around, these were the life support of the dragon's head. Even if they could surpass the anti-gate system or otherwise obtain the password, they would essentially have to transport the whole building along.

"So we will help you." said Balsephon amiably.

"We did not kill the head because we gave up. We thought it would be sad that with the new world that will come soon, there would be no ancient dragon blood. This beautiful dragon should be part of it." He rested his hands on the tusk, at which time the red eye opened.

_Hello, hatred, what an interesting face you have today._

Rokuna sat down, holding her knees close with her arms and hiding half her face.

"You gave up? What is that supposed to mean?" Ruth said.

"It means he's going to help us keep it alive till we can move it." Rokuna whispered. Her shoulders were shaking, she seemed to be crying. However, behind her knees she hid an uneven grin.

"Did you know that the original fairytales of my world weren't innocent stories, instead bloody and disturbing stories to scare children straight, filled with misogyny and an unrealistic black-white morality? But in many of those stories, the princess still got to save the prince, even if it was from her own errors." Rokuna continued with strange glee.

"Okay, getting weird now." Ruth said.

"What are you doing to her?" Shiru demanded.

Balsephon smiled and shook his head again. "Oh, nothing, nothing. Now the angel and the imp must excuse us, we have work to do!" He clapped his hands, and from out the machinery mess several others like him emerged, all starting to work on the various tools.

The dragon started to twitch. Rokuna's grin became a soft, short laughter. Worried Shiru knelt down at her side.

"Rokuna!"

The girl looked up.

"Oh, Shiru-san, Ruth, you can't help now. You should aid Zaha and find Mon-chan. I'm going to have to concentrate."

"What is wrong with you?!"

_They don't get it. But that's okay._

"The princess is going to save the dragon now." she said happily as she rolled onto her side. Shiru pulled her up from the floor, but Rokuna pushed off and stumbled towards the dragon. There she slumped down against one of the tusks. All around the machines came to loud life, filling the hall with that persistent industrial buzz again.

Shiru's eyes darted from the madness all around to Rokuna who had curled up against the dragon, whispering inaudible things.

"If I must, I can floor all in this room." Shiru threatened. "Now answer me, what is going on?"

"What a waste that would be." said one of Balsephon's servants without looking at her.

"What a senseless action when she had no idea what will happen if these machines are not operated." said another.

Shiru withdrew the energy she had been gathering invisibly. "What are you doing?" she asked again, desperately.

"The angel should ease down. We are not the villain. The little girl is. _Ask her_."

**· · · · · · ·**

Mondo was delivered, again, to a waiting room, but this time his hands were tied and it was no cheap prison. The elves shoved him into a room and left again. Mondo glared after them and started chewing the bonds the moment the doors were closed.

"Ai, that won't work."

Surprised, he looked up to see Theta, stretched out on a bench nearby.

"They caught you too?"

"Ai, Captain Obvious. Say, why are you not on your epic mission?"

"I was! We had found the head, I was about to start cutting it free and suddenly I fall down outside again. Thank goodness Pegasus caught me."

"Bummer. Well, at least you left your girlfriend in safe company."

"Not anymore! Zaha is fighting off some crazy demon guard and Shiru-san is really low on energy!"

Theta blinked. "Ai ai, and where's your pony?"

"I don't know." Mondo said, sounding quite defeated.

"So .... how's the thing doing? Dead, alive, somewhere in between?" Theta didn't actually care, but talking was a good way to hide nervousness.

"It was horrible, that poor dragon. I know it worked for Reda, but so did many others who are our friends now, it doesn't deserve something like this! I can't imagine what it would be to live with only my head and no body ...."

Theta noticed a sudden shock cross him, his expression horrified.

"What's it?"

"Rokuna _can _know. I have to get out of here, I have to help her!" He set his teeth into the ropes again.

"Can know? How's that?"

Mondo paused his efforts and said :"She .... dangit, I should have realized this. She can't turn off her sixth sense. She had a clash with Zaha over it, he already knew and--Dangit." He started chewing again.

"Ai, we're in one of the largest cities in the world. Curious she hasn't gone utterly insane yet."

"Mwahdsdarg .... what's that supposed to mean?"

"That sixth sense is some sort of magical ball thingy right? Lots of information coming in. How is she gonna not lose herself in that?"

"But .... she said she was fine. The only thing really bothering her was us worrying."

"That's the problem with you honest people. You have so much faith in your friends you assume them not to lie to you. What if she's been influencing you to believe it's okay?"

"She wouldn't do that!" Mondo said resolutely.

Theta sat up and looked straight at him.

"What about subconsciously? If she doesn't want you to know and you're open to trusting her ....." She whirled a finger aside of her head. "Whoosh, she gives you a calming feeling and you believe her. Maybe she believes it too. We call that lying to oneself."

At that point, three servants appeared from somewhere to remove to open a massive door. But they failed at opening it quick enough and a large blue hand sat off against it, pushing through the gate.

Theta's straw dropped from her mouth, then her knees gave way.

Malakoda herself had come. The little homunculus wasted no time bowing in submission, indirectly telling Mondo this was serious. The boy pondered what to do and bowed briefly, but then defiantly looked up at the demon ruler.

Towering some meters over the two small humanoids and with a cloak or tail of whirling mass full of faces, wires and eyes, she was an intimidating sight, yet Mondo was hardly impressed.

Old as she was, she on her turn had nothing to waste on disrespectful children.

"Lady Malakoda," he guessed at her identity, "I need to go back to my friends, they're in danger."

"How would I know doing so is not a danger to my people?" she thundered.

Mondo recalled what Rokuna had told him earlier about the demon court suspecting they were out to erase the dark element.

"We're not going to do anything bad to the dark element, we just want to —"

"Such a specific denial." Malakoda said.

Oops. Malakoda wasn't aware Rokuna _had _that information, so it came across as if he had just affirmed it.

"Wait, that's not—"

"Wait for what? Until it's too late for us to do anything against you? No, I won't be a fool and risk my lord and my city. You stay here. If that's all you've got to say .... "

"Why can't we just get along?" Mondo muttered. Theta banged forehead on the ground and groaned something about stupid idealists.

Malakoda looked back. "Indeed, why can't we? Our city holds the distributor of all demon energy, yet the tribes pay us no respect. Sansara skips us in her journeys and the saviors of the universe sneak into our gates for some reason that they refuse to share beyond saying that it relates to the one strategical location that can threaten Pandæmonium."

"But we just want the dragon's head to open up the prisons in Kharon! That soldier, he had inform—"

"Then why didn't you just ask us for help? More than a few of members of our families may be in those labyrinths. We would have made an exception. If we found that was the truth, off course."

"Uh.....well, they said it might take months before you would cooperate and we didn't have that much time and — " And again he was interrupted.

"They said? Would that be the angels? So you are in liege with them! No wonder you never asked why.. I had hoped you had something more interesting to tell me."

Mondo remained silent, felt like joining Theta in banging his head against the floor.

Malakoda whirled around, the ghostly cloud briefly brushing over Mondo and Theta as she left.

**· · · · · · ·**

It is unpleasant to stand across your enemy and find that they carry sorrow and no hatred for you. To despise the cackling mad villain is no effort, but how easy is it to kill someone who reaches out to you?

Probably easier than it should be. Their feelings were insignificant compared to the hundreds they had made to suffer, indeed, even so much as compared to the poor Terror Dragon here.

"She created an subconscious link with us the very first time she linked to a Vujad Soldier and we had to pull him away. We already were hopeless before, just for a second she convinced us it indeed is. So much better the world would be if we do not exist." said one of the scientists.

"Now we understand. They are the speakers of the rokumon. She is right." said another.

"We should die." said a third almost musically, such dissonance. Voices, voices. Rokuna closed her eyes and felt the pulse of the dragon behind her back.

"Then what are you doing?" Shiru asked again. Her questions, again unanswered. She lived years with unanswered questions and Rokuna found it interesting she had more sympathy for Shiru than for the very lives of her enemy. Such dissonance.

"We help the dragon survive, off course. Until she is ready to defend it herself." said Balsephon.

"No. If you mean to help us, then why did you send the Vujad after us just now?"

"To set the mood. For a certain flavor of despair, these Vujad boys and girls are truly useful. She didn't want to see all that time, but we gave her the final drops she needed to gain courage."

_You've convinced me._

Shiru recalled those words. "To set the mood?"

The pieces fell together.

_"Well, was he thinking about Reda or anything? Right before it happened, I saw a flash of him ..... I think it freaked me out a bit and that's why I became so defensive that couldn't tell anymore what I did."_

Those in the labyrinths suffered, the Monitor who was arrogant, Zaha who wanted to see himself punished, the Vujad Soldiers who cared not for life and death and these people who didn't know what to do ..... Rokuna was not just perceiving thoughts and feelings, she was experiencing it as if they were her own and maybe some that were already hers increased under that weight. How many living souls were in this city, how many minds were influencing her right now?

Rokuna looked up at Shiru now, meeting her horrified eyes .... and she laughed.

"I can't survive like the normal me, that's what they are saying. Like this I'm too weak to stop anything. But I'm working on it. They are, too. I don't have to try very hard to convince them." With some difficulty, as if dizzy, Rokuna stood up again.

"I think I've been trying to convince them ever since that first soldier died. I just .... didn't want to notice."

The lights died.

Summoning should not work here, yet Rokuna started to draw a rokumon on the floor. They had given her the password?

"Off course they have. They agree with me now. They first tried to make me listen, but I won out. Now .... _Apertio Porta Terris_!"

The portal came to life and took on the traits of the earth element. Rokuna started muttering the spells from Arash's scrolls out of memory.

Shiru wanted to step forward to stop her, but Rokuna raised a protective shield around herself. Shiru didn't have enough energy left to undo it.

"Don't worry, Shiru-san! I won't necromance anything!" said the girl in reply to the unspoken concern. "I have a much better idea."

The rokumon expanded as wide as the hall and then vanished. An acidic odor filled the air, accompanied by the murmur of many voices and teal, gray and brown faces appeared on the walls and the floor.

As their link was strengthened by contract, Dryad's Children felt what she felt and right Rokuna felt everything. No longer fearing their lonely chaos, Rokuna mentally embraced them and gave them a cause for their aimless hatred. So they found kin in her and in the Terror Dragon.

Rokuna stood up and continued muttering the golem formation spells. In accordance the Dryad's Children started to form new bodies, so they were no longer a clutter of faces glued together. Using earth, machine, flesh and water they grew long, misted yet solid forms that crept up everything like rolling waves. Onto the dragon's neck, onto the scientists, but steering a safe distance of Rokuna and her two friends.

She hardly had the skill to form what they became but they took whatever restorative magic they could hold onto. They knew what to do to heal themselves now given the means, ancient instincts of a Dryad to preserve nature. The pain of the unnatural energy that held the Dryad's Children together lessened. Rokuna so became their savior and healer as she called forth energy from the Saint Star Dragon itself to bring them strength. Almost serene she stood in the middle of the wilderness, her eyes closed and humming a lullaby. She became the mother whom they hardly recalled.

"Now the angel and the imp have seen enough, they should be on her way." said Balsephon as one of the veil-like forms crept up around him.

Rokuna didn't open her eyes anymore and said : "I won't let Pandæmonium get the head. I'll make it strong enough till we can leave. You should go help Zaha."

She sounded happy perhaps. When she was farthest from herself, a shell remained that could continue again like nothing had changed.

Two portals projected from the prior earth circle, one golden for Shiru, one violet for Ruth. They were sent away and then, Rokuna was all alone with the silent dragon and the wordless Dryad's Children.

**· · · · · · ·**

"Lady Malakoda, you have a visitor."

She didn't have time, really, now that the Blackwinged Angel and the Vujad had been spotted, but this man claimed that he had met the Mon Colle Knights a few days ago.

What she met was a skeletal man whom she knew to be a manufacturer of golems. His hands folded into his sleeves and the same face as always, he didn't convey any urgency. He respectfully bowed, she nodded her head and said :

"I am in a hurry, but if you have useful information I will listen."

"Indeed I do. A few days ago, they came to me for help."

Now suspicious, she asked :"Did you oblige?"

"More or less."

"Were you aware of their identity?"

"Yes."

"Yet you're here, perfectly calm, and telling me this despite this meaning I will apprehend you."

"I am expecting you to be curious enough to ask me why I do what I do."

"Hm. I will presume then you have something new to say. Spill it."

"The girl is a natural empath."

"What of it? They are weaklings."

"Indeed they are, they lose control so easily of their monsters."

"I _know_ that."

"Then listen carefully. I found the girl had skill for artificial lifeforms and believed she could handle what I would teach her. It was meant to let her help the dragon's head remain alive once taken out of whatever preservation it was in. More importantly, it was meant to help her learn to handle her empathic senses, for it is perpetual."

"For a someone who just admitted to helping illegals, you should not try to patience. What are you saying?"

"I am saying there is a very powerful witch in your city who can summon a small army and who will lose control of said army if they get harmed too much. We are sitting on a timed explosion. Unless you are able to soothe down the aura of all of your enraged citizens within the next half hour, you really want to let that boy go back to her."

It did not take her long to understand what this meant.

"And you learned her the basics for necromancy despite knowing this could happen?" Her trail flared up to either side of the unresponsive Arash.

"The girl linked with a dangerous nameless monster some a week ago. It was give or take. Learn her to help it so she may survive at the risk of your citizens, or see her die if she ever accidentally calls it forth. Frankly, the girl is too important to the world to die in such a senseless incident."

Hearing him speak so disregarding over her citizens, Malakoda's breath grew heavy and all eyes in her trail opened to glare down at Arash.

"You .... How could you ...."

"Lady Malakoda, whatever you mean to say now my white winged friend will surely rub into my face soon enough. Now please, let the boy go back to her before it is too late."

The entire room filled with her darkness as she roared : "No!"

"I suspected as much. Well, I am just standing here to distract you from the _Nox _spell I'm using right now to keep you blind from my alternate plan."

Malakoda looked down and stomped on the floor, charging it with magic. Black smoke appeared. Sure enough, her audience room was under a full Nox spell, the root type for obscuring magic.

At this moment, Shiru teleported into view behind Arash. Briefly her eyes crossed with those of Malakoda, her expression apologetic, then she _misted_ once more and took Arash along.

**· · · · · · ·**

It certainly was an awkward enough sight to distract some immediate attacks. Theta and Mondo ran ahead through the halls right behind a twirling ballerina kitty whose flaming dance wiped clear anything ahead. Whatever came from behind, well, it met Namiko in an equally flaming display, be it less elegant and more .... brutal. Either way, little resistance was left from the court.

"How did you find out we were in trouble?" Mondo managed to ask in between dodging palace guards.

"A little angel told us." Giselle mused.

"But why isn't she with Rokuna-chan?"

"Oh, trouble perhaps?"

A raid of dark elves on their skeletal mounts appeared before them, this would be trickier than the regular palace guard. The beasts started to promptly latch onto the walls and so approached from all angles.

"Hold out for a moment." said Giselle and went ahead. Still no answers for Mondo.

He didn't get much more chance for thinking, for now they had reached a balcony. They were halfway the top and lower sides of the city here, to say it was a long way down would be an understatement.

"Ai, what now?" Theta said with uncharacteristic nervousness.

"We jump." Namiko said casually. She grabbed Mondo and Theta under her arms and made action of her words.

"Don't worry kids, we broke out your horse friend first! And if he's not in time.... I've survived this stuff before! Weeeeee!"

Fortunately for Mondo and Theta, Pegasus _was_ there right on time to swoop them away.

The skeletal beasts shot their energy after them, but Giselle incepted it with one of her fire storms. A few threatened to come through, but Pegasus neatly dodged them.

Once far enough, they landed on a mostly flat roof. They wouldn't be able to stay here for long, soon the Guard would drum up the rest of their forces.

Now, Mondo and Theta could see what was up.

The darkness all around the city had been lit with golden light from an unknown source. More important though was the tiny light pillar that seemed to go right up into the upper part of the city. So now and then a flare of pitch black interrupted it.

"That's at the factory, right? What's going on there?" Mondo asked worriedly.

His eyes then fell on something else, a green, moving mass spreading out from the root of the glowing pillar. Even for humans ears, it was possible to hear the panicked cries of the demons as this mass moved into populated areas.

Shiru joined them now and brought Arash along. Following their gazes, she said :

"She called the children of that dryad to her. I'm not sure, but I think she's trying to use them to heal the dragon with the constructive part of necromancy. But .... Balsephon, he figured it out somehow and tempted her with despair. And now the dryad's children are as confused as she is and perceive the city as a threat because that is what Rokuna feels."

Then she looked at Arash.

"Answer me, was this what you intended?"

"I was hoping it would take some time for her to ease into it. How was I supposed to know the Vujad were around or that their masters had a death wish? And I most certainly was not counting on the entire city taking on anti-Mon Colle Knights sentiments."

This did not satisfy Shiru. "Arash, how could you let her learn something like that when you knew she might lose herself?"

"Interesting question. Recently I have not taken the dose I need to experience matters such as concern. She never got the idea to read my mind and I never cared for the consequences. Besides, practically speaking it is better she gets over herself quickly."

"How can you, all these people ..." she said in utter disbelief.

Mondo stepped in between them.

"Okay, I don't get a lot of this dose stuff but can we do this later? We have to stop her before anymore citizens get hurt!"

"Indeed."

Silence. Arash looked at Mondo as if the boy was supposed to know something.

"Posses her. It is why I learned you Nox." he said.

"Come again?"

"To be realistic for a moment, you has absolutely no experience with such a thing. You can barely use Nox as an anti-energy shield. But you should be able to set down a few stones on the path."

"Ah, I see. The Black Winged Angel does have experience." Giselle joined in.

"But he still needed adapted cards to get that far, he can't do it naturally like Reda." Ruth objected. "Besides, he is busy!"

The imp pointed at the battle that took place close to the factory. Flares of black indicated Zaha's attempt to keep two other shadows at bay.

"So he seems. Mondo, you have placed Zaha and Shiru under contract, have you not? Go over there, enchant Rokuna, simulate a contract with her and hand it to Zaha." Arash crisped.

"If there's no other choice ...." he sighed. He complied and informed Zaha.

"- _Mondo, can you see all that black swirly stuff in the air? I AM BUSY. _-" Zaha snapped while dodging a blade.

"- _Ruth said that, yeah. But well, I'm sorry to remind you of this but you can control creatures into violence while remaining calm yourself. Can't you work it the other way around too? _-"

As Mondo argued a little while Shiru spread her wings and rose to the air, intent on going to aid Zaha.

"Ai, wait!" Theta took Shiru's arm, pulling her back down a little. "I need a lift."

"What for?"

"I'm going to do something really stupid and I need something big and glowing to draw attention to me."

She pointed at a nearby square, where a group of anxious citizens had gathered. They were apparently discussing countermeasures against the 'invasion', Theta could hear them speak.

"Take me there with a lot of flash, I am going to set loose another rumor into the city."

Mondo turned to her, suspicious of her intent.

"Ai, certainly I am going to lie a little." Theta said as she guessed his thoughts. "But only insofar that telling the truth will make them believe a lie. If I tell them Malakoda spread the rumor about the Vujad that I'm gonna try to disprove, I'm gonna look like I wanna start a rebellion. Pandæmonium's citizens are happy and loyal. That's not gonna sit well."

"Then what are you going to tell them?" Namiko asked.

Theta took an overacted dramatic pose and said :"The epic but unfortunate story of how the Mon Colle Knights are trying to appoint a new Demon Guardian, and Reda's henchmen spread foul rumors all over town to make the citizens hinder the heroes while they conduct an evil experiment to destroy the city!"

Everyone just stared at her, except Namiko who thought Theta was perfectly serious.

"It's the art of crowd control, it needs dramatics." she explained. "Ai folks, go stop the princess now, no? And don't hate me if I can't pull it off."

**· · · · · · ·**

Curled up against the dragon, she hummed the lullaby that she didn't remember from her childhood. It was her own creation and offered some comfort. There were so much enemies around her, she wasn't sure whether her friends could keep them away from the dragon.

Four Dryad's Children had remained as root for all others. Slowly they healed the wounded dragon, feeding it bits of lifeforce and merging with it so it could sustain itself without the machines. Rokuna figured that perhaps Balsephon and his servants should have lived longer to continue the process, but no, they weren't nice company.

Now it was nearly silent here, without the engines. Those had come to belong to the Dryad's Children as well. They felt a lot better now, they listened to each other now.

Mondo in the distance, he was in danger. So were her others friends here. She wanted to go there, but she was too weak. But the Children would go, right through the city. They wanted to for her and they went through all the monsters that hindered them on the way there.

She wanted to follow, so she stood up and stepped across the whirling mass of earth, roots and bones. Out of the room, away from the dragon, just intending to see how far she could go to .... to .... to what?

They weren't going to get the head. Yes, that was it. She was going to make sure the head stayed safe. They weren't going to stop them from opening the labyrinths.

Out of the door, into the halls that were covered with stagnant, surreal matter; remnants of the Children that had passed here. She kept walking until the walls became wider till they fell away.

At her left there was a sea that softly glowed green. Quick clouds created a black sky that she did not question, though it wasn't like her previous visit here. That had been a sunny day.

Black volcanic rock lined a white beach and on those rocks sat an angelic form. As she walked towards it, found she had to struggle through the sand. The rock on the contrary she could climb as if she was feather light and she soon reached its top. The angel seated there turned.

A benign face with long, wavy hair, wide feathered wings. The green glow that filled the sky clouded his coloration, there was nothing about him betraying his demonic nature untill one realized that the mildly sour scent came from the blood that covered his wings.

But where was his red mask? It unsettled her to see his smile : neither kind nor particularly malicious, only satisfied.

"Why don't you show me around? I'm bored." he casually said. "It's getting too quiet."

He just stood up and walked past her before she could think up something to do. Once he stepped onto the sand, he stopped and called back :

"Are you going to stand there forever? The sea is going to rise soon."

The water indeed approached and now she saw faces in the waves, unkind, angry faces. Hands and feet and wings, they washed onto the beach and would soon engulf the rock. Shaken awake, she followed Reda.

Once at his side she looked back and the ocean was just ocean again, but still it seemed to creep after her.

Reda spread his wings and flew away.

Why she followed the blur of red wings she didn't know. By all means, he was likely far more dangerous than that sea. But she didn't want to stay at these waters nor did she want to wander the surrounding forest alone. Those wings seemed to be her only anchor.

A very unreliable anchor, for he kept flying faster and faster and her legs could not keep up.

She fell, and as happens in dreams, one can fall forever and for no reason.

Impact was not supposed to hurt this much though.

Rokuna lay there for a moment, then pushed up and looked around. A field, a forest, and mountains and there .... the ocean again. It came creeping up the north horizon, over the mountains. In the light of an invisible sun the waters reflected the form of fearsome faces and reaching arms.

_Led away only to live longer in fear?_

Immediately she was on her feet again and ran in the opposite direction. Here she could stand on the tips of the grass and the ground no longer pulled her in, but it didn't seem to be enough. The ocean crashed into the valley and quickly after her.

_Where do I go?_

"I can't take this .... this boredom anymore." a voice softly sounded in the distance.

_Mom?_

Following the familiar voice, she ran up the mountain from hence it came, hopping from stone to stone. The stones seemed to bend and soon became like a stairs.

_Am I even smaller?_

There, the top of the stairs. She curled her fingers around the ridge and pulled up so she could see.

A familiar kitchen table. She stood on a bag and peered over the edge. At one side of the table she saw her mother, her eyes averted and her lips pressed together except when she sipped at her cigarette. So now and then she changed the way her legs were crossed and irritably tapped on the table.

Her father was at the other end, looking down at a paper before him. He seemed more disheveled than usual. A messy mad scientist who needed a haircut, he was an unsuitable contrast to the woman who knew she was beautiful.

Rokuna looked from face to face, then at the mysterious papers before them. Her father bit on the pen, then looked up pleadingly.

"Won't you-"

"No! Ichirobei, we're not starting this again! Please don't make it even more difficult."

He continued staring at the paper for a long time and then to Rokuna. He showed the saddest expression she had ever seen on him.

Then he signed it.

Her mother reached across the table to pull the papers towards her and looked at them briefly.

"Well then .... if I forgot to take anything, my lawyer will let you know." Carefully she folded the papers into a case she'd never taken along before and prepared to leave.

_But won't you stay for me? You say you're neglected, but you still have me! And now you leave me with one you know also neglects me?_

The door opened, the driveway was brightly lit by a lovely spring day.

"No!" Rokuna balled her hands and ran over, jumped to her mother's hand. Desperately she clung to her the thin fingers. The woman looked down with a mixture of tired sadness and doubt on her face.

Rokuna had never asked it : "Mommy, won't you stay for me? I don't want to be alone either!"

_Aren't my tears enough to tell you I want you to stay?_

"But you're not crying." whispered Reda from somewhere.

Her mother sniffed and turned away as she tossed her cigarette into a nearby garbage bin. She never jerked her hand loose, just kept walking and Rokuna had to let go after a few awkward stumbles. The woman's back became smaller and smaller and she couldn't run after her.

"It wouldn't have mattered if you had asked." Reda said as the woman rounded the last corner. There he stood, arms crossed and smiling contently.

"There's nothing you could have done to stop her. You're weak, insignificant. Your only powers are the things fate gave you and this wasn't included."

The shadows of the buildings around her became deeper, the walls rose higher and approached her till the light was only an narrow, uneven rectangle above her. Reda was out of sight, but not for long. He appeared at the edge and looked down at her with clear disdain.

"The world uses you, plays with you and at the end, it will stand at your grave and laugh. I wanted to stand at this world's grave and be the one laughing, then I would be free in my own world."

Now she realized what was going to happen and he asked her :"Won't you scream?"

_I hate you._

Amidst her confusion and fear, that sparked a flare of anger. That she wasn't going to give him. She pressed her lips together and started clawing at the earth. But this only seemed to pull her deeper in.

Reda coldly looked down at her, his expression quickly becoming disgusted with her futile attempts.

Then the earth covered her.

So she stayed for a long time. The weight of the earth threatened to choke her, but she had already stopped breathing when her mother let go. So she remained for a long time.

_I want to cry, let me cry._

While the tears didn't come, the weight on her gradually became less.

An even sound and sometimes a cough reach her, then something like light appeared. Fingers softly brushed the dirt off of her and she looked up to meet another angel's face.

With earth around her ears she barely could hear the words : "You, .... you look really awful."

As the hands continued digging around, she started to struggle again and soon she was free. On her knees she crawled out of the grave, coughing out dirt that had gotten in her mouth and nose. But that was soon forgotten in the face of her rescuer.

It was an actual angel, but with broken wings. Something about her seemed vaguely familiar, though Rokuna couldn't immediately put her finger on who it was.

A loud scream drew her attention to the sky. Dark wine red clouds that spread to all horizons made it difficult to see, but the sounds and the occasional falling object betrayed a fierce battle. Only the horizons were alight with gold, creating an even light from all directions, so now and then reflecting on armor.

Turning her attention to the angel, Rokuna found she had started another hole in the ground. The entire area littered with deep holes like the one she had come from. Curiously, she stood up at the angel's side and looked at her bloodied hands.

"Doesn't that hurt?" she asked in concern.

The more she beheld, the more the angel seemed to be in pain. The tips of her wings were ripped off and the wing-bones were visible. Something seemed to have taken a bite out of a wing, closer to the back, and the skin of that back seemed to contract and expand a little.

"What hurts?"

Rokuna tilted her head, that was not a girl's voice. A _he_, then? She frowned, this voice was really familiar.

"Are you dying?"

"I already did." the angel pointed up the hill.

There was a grave, before it was the deepest hole. Hebrew script was on the grave, this too was very familiar.

"Then why all these holes, if you don't need a grave?"

"Brightness." he whispered manically. "I'm looking for brightness."

"You can't find light under the ground."

"What would you know? Just let me be!"

Rokuna frowned. "I just came from there! If the light you're looking for is the same as my light, then you can't find it there!"

He stopped and crawled backwards out of the hole and wiped some dirt out of his face to look at her more clearly.

"I am not looking for light, but for brightness". His expression was stubborn, but also very sad; her initial irritation ebbed away.

"Oh? I'm sorry, I thought it was a metaphor. My light just left."

"Mine did too. He went upward." He made a vague gesture to the war filled sky.

"I have to find brightness for they who sing, both of them. It's the least I can do, but I'm too weak to find him."

His silhouette against the horizon softly shook, though like her, he didn't seem able to shed tears for anything.

"He didn't leave me. He and she were always my guardians."

Once again he drove his broken nails into the rocky ground and continued digging.

"You're fortunate with them. My guardian _did _leave me. She was supposed to protect me. That would have been so easy in our world but she couldn't even make the smallest sacrifice."

"Then they weren't your guardian."

"But I want her to be!"

"You can't make anyone do that."

"But if I could?"

He tossed a large rock aside, pushed up again and looked into her yes.

"And you would?" he asked with suspecting gaze at her.

"If I would be able to do that, I could make her feel my despair and make her see it my my and if she still wouldn't stay for me, I could just change her thoughts too till she understands!" That very idea made her excited, she thought about all the things she could have her mother do with her.

Much to her surprise, he laughed. A very unangelic, mocking laughter.

"What a pretense. How would she feel living a lie? I know all about living lies." His expression grew hateful and at this very moment, from the source of blood on his head two horns pushed out. He drew together in agony and his head sank to the ground, but his whimpers changed into a mad chuckle shortly.

"You would change the parts you don't like? You must hate her a lot."

This was not what Rokuna wanted to hear.

She took a few steps back, then more until she had turned and was running away. Soon she heard something follow her. Within seconds, her pursuer leaped over her head and landed in front of her.

A large black hellhound with two heads was blocking her way. From its feet black fire welled in a circle around her and there was nowhere to go.

Zaha slipped off of the dog's back.

"Don't run."

"Why not?" she said, somewhat desperately.

"Listen to yourself. You accuse me of measuring my whole life by one event, but you do the same! That's why you are afraid of your powers, isn't it? You would abuse it in _that one setting_."

"Zaha? Why are you in my land?"

"You're in _my _land."

She crossed her arms. "Well, whether or not I am in your land doesn't matter! You can't say those things to me!"

"Oh no? You have to hear it though, whether you like it or not. Your fear's going to destroy you otherwise."

"What would you know?"

He scoffed. "Did you leave your memory in your land? I carried that same fear and hatred for years, it was my mask and my excuse to play with the lives of others."

"I'm not playing with anyone's lives! What are you talking about?"

"You are doing so right now, Rokuna!"

"I'm not!"

"Then what is that sea? Aren't those your sacrifices?" He stretched his arm ahead, but she did not look and clutched her ears to block out the rush of approaching waves.

"I'm not aware of such a thing! That sea has nothing to do with me!"

"They are you responsibility so _become _aware of it!"

He didn't know anything. That sea was dangerous. And she didn't like how he looked either, so angry, as if she had done something wrong. All she knew she'd been doing was helping an injured dragon and then this crazy land here had come with all its dangers. What right did he have to be angry at her?

When he stepped forward and reached to her face, she batted his hand away and darted past him. Off into the fire, but it didn't harm her.

The darkness obscured her vision though and soon not even the sky was visible. She slowed into a walk and as she did so, the ground gave way once more. This fall though it didn't seem to be downward .... it was a different sort of pull.

The black fire was replaced by clouds, or maybe smoke judging from the foul smell.

_Nothingness?_

No .... something was ahead.

She would recognize as little as his silhouette everywhere.

"Mon-chan!" she called as his became more visible.

He moved, seemed to spot her. His face contorted with fear and at the same time she saw herself through his eyes.

She was the dragon head. The Dryad's Children had formed a new body for her and the dragon and so she charged forward, right towards Mondo.

No, I don't want this .... why am I .....

She opened the dragon's mouth, or maybe the dragon opened her mouth. So they fell upon Mondo.

_I failed._

When it was over and he was no more they all stopped, slowly drifting towards the ground and sinking down there. This time the fall didn't hurt, or maybe it wasn't significant enough.

She couldn't understand what she herself had done until her entire form had seeped back into that of the little girl.

Mercilessly the sea approached from all sides, small waves first came to her knees. Soon she was surrounded by an ocean, yet she herself could still not shed any tears.

In despair she reached to her face, only to find she had no face. Her fingers touched a smooth, featureless surface.

A soft splash drew her attention and she looked up to find Reda once more. Even though she was eyeless, he seemed to know exactly how to look into soul.

He raised a hand and stretched it out as he stepped aside, she followed his gesture to look over the waters.

Clearer than before she could see the people in the ocean, angry and .... fearful. The deeper she looked, the more often she saw the waves wash over unmoving forms. The faces became less and the corpses more numerous.

She tried covering her eyes with her hands, but where ever her eyes were, they could see right through her hands and the sea would not leave her vision.

"Why wouldn't you want to see? This, it is the altar of your selfishness." Reda said. Something like admiration was in his voice, tearing down at her. A halfhearted scream escaped the girl, only a futile expression.

"Go away! Go away, all of you!"

Reda looked down at her with bemusement, mixed with his typical disgust.

"How humiliating, that something as small as that could be used to cement a future for this rotten universe, against me." he said sharply.

"And I've just about had enough of this nonsense. What are you?" said a third voice.

Reda turned to meet find Zaha walking up to them, dragging his wings through the water as his back convulsed.

The red angel immediately pulled his sword from his left hand.

"I could ask you the same." said Reda as he charged at Zaha.

The angel only smirked as his white wings fell off and the flesh of his back broke open to release his biomechanic wings. Within the same motion, he used the hardened tips of those wings to attack Reda. One through his arm, the other through his stomach. Where in reality Reda's charge would have tossed him back, here he had the upper hand.

"I am the Blackwinged Angel and you are not Reda. I killed him already."

In the grip of Zaha's wings, Reda's form withered away like dry grass in the wind. He then turned to Rokuna, who had watched the spectacle only with mild wonder.

"Whatever the heck that was, it was right about one thing. This is pathetic. Get up, Rokuna!" he said as walked over.

Nothing. Hm .....

He stood before her and realized he still did not know what to say to her. Zaha figured they should have sent Mondo or Shiru, because what could he say? He only had questions.

Well, if nothing better .....

Kneeling down, he came at eye level with her.

"What is wrong?"

"It hurts."

"What does?"

"The world."

"You're not paying attention to the world."

"Yes I do."

"What do you see?"

"They're attacking me and my friends. The world is attacking us. And I can't .... "

"You're also attacking them."

He paused and thought about what had just come to mind. Any way to put this in a less blunt way? Did he even have time?

"Heck, you're linked to a whole bunch of monsters and they're acting out your fear on unsuspecting townsfolk cause you're here and not paying attention to anything but yourself."

Now she looked up, ever silent. But now he saw it.

"You're just afraid of yourself after all?"

"Yes ...." she murmured.

When he reached to her face again, she did not stop him. He took something off of her.

At the moment he placed Reda's mask in her hands, she started to cry. In came everything the Dryad's Children saw, all the pain, all the chaos. Cringing together, she closed her eyes.

"Rokuna, stop them! Get up and stop them!" Zaha called.

"I can't. I couldn't even stop her. And now ..... I'm like her. I let Mondo down. He's ... is he gone? He's not gone is he?"

"No, your fear is what keeps him alive. Now look around you."

"If I try to stop them I have to go into their mind and then I'll become like them. Then it's going to go ..."

She turned over the mask in her hand and the yellow pupils started back at her from black almond eyes.

"Go wrong? No, that's what happens when you keep denying part of yourself. Look up. Who are you speaking to?"

The angel form was still unfamiliar, but she recognized the wings and the horns, that stern expression and something in his eyes.

"I ... I'm talking to Zaha. You don't look very much like the Zaha I know though. Should you be talking?"

He finally had a smile to share. That she recognized too. "I came to get you, so yes."

"Oh .... Zaha _did _deny his conscience .... the world didn't like it ..... and I am .... "

The sea retreated and they were back on the beach with the volcanic rocks.

"Like I said before, you can see the fork in your road. Unless you're looking at the ground the entire time. Only the here and now, that is exactly how I did not see where my failing was."

She understood what Zaha was getting at. Only one event she had measured by :

_What would I do if I had the chance to hold back my mother? .... I'd probably force her._

And so she had only suffered through her sixth sense without trying to even understand it, and let it go unchecked. The idea of practicing to refine it hadn't even occurred to her.

But this power was that of emotions and emotions steered will, her own included. What she denied consciously remained unaffected subconsciously and so she had been unaware of that she herself had crossed the line.

She now saw whose corpses were around her : the citizens of Pandæmonium. More splinter visions of reality started to appear on the horizon, a ring of light ....

"Oh no....., Zaha, what's going on?"

The despair setting over her this time was a different sort than that of loneliness, this was the despair born from her conscience.

He opened his mind to her and she saw through his eyes too.

A ring of light where darkness had lined Pandæmonium, the Praetorians attacking Zaha and Shiru and far below .... an avalanche of the Dryad's Children making their way through the streets of the city towards the pillar ....

Zaha set his hand atop her head softly.

"We don't know the future, but how about we go fix the present? Preferably very quickly, I'm a bit in trouble."

The red mask started to crumble under the force of her clenching hands.

**· · · · · · ·**


	7. Hopeful Elegy

**· · · · · · ·**

**· Chapter VII · Hopeful Elegy ·**

**· · · · · · ·**

Rokuna opened her eyes to reality, finding messy black hair and a worried face above her, her head was on someone's legs. The lack of red bangs confused her for a moment, then she recalled the dye.

"Mon-chan?"

His face brightened. "Rokuna-chan, are you okay?"

"I get really sick of that question, you know." she said, but she could show her first genuine smile in a long time. Then her brow dropped and on came her firm look.

She hopped up and looked around. Mondo was right on his feet after her and spoke the spell to undo the possession on her. Clouds of dark energy came from her skin and vanished in a breeze.

Breeze?

Where had the walls gone?

"I did this?" she asked in shock.

"Uh .... I don't think so?" Mondo wasn't quite sure what was going on today actually. With a proverbial sweatdrop, he added :"This whole invisible sixth sense, I just don't understand it."

"Oh, I guess I will have to explain you some time. But first, Mon-chan, I'm going to try and call back the Dryad's Children. Can you handle them?"

He nodded with determination. "I made it over here, didn't I?"

She folded her hands and concentrated as well as she could. Clearer than ever before, her sight expanded into the awareness of the monsters under her contract.

No more weakness, she promised herself and so she dove into the hive mind. Battles against the Children had erupted throughout the city and their pain set down a weight onto her, but her anger measured up equally now. Anger with herself, predominantly.

Rokuna had raged over all sorts of things in her life, but never had she experienced something this fierce and ironically, it was only for herself. To stand at the root of the death of innocents, unable to undo any of it, only that rage allowed her to see it through.

No, wait, there was another element that helped her.

Mondo stood before her and cupped his hands around hers. There was little he could do, he thought. Yet he did everything for her by helping her hold onto herself now, Rokuna knew.

"- _Just be with me._ -" she quietly told him.

While her eyes were closed, she could tell he was teary eyed again .... he always got like that in these situations. She loved that about him.

Hm, whether 'fate' was real or a fabrication by the residents of the seventh realm, it had given her Mondo and many other friends. She took his strength and her own anger and so forced her will upon the monsters, forced their retreat. Citing out a line she learned them the difference between self defense and needless attack, one stubborn and wild mind at a time.

The first Child returned only minutes later, but soon the speed with which they replied to her bid increased. Leaving behind parts of their makeshift bodies on the plain before the factory and keeping the useful parts, soon they merged into a single entity again and twirled together at the bleeding end of the dragon's head.

A calmness set in now the violence in the city subsided. She noticed an entirely new story going rounds, one that wasn't quite accurate but many lips carried it and it caused a strange sort of joy in the citizens. A new collective mood that they all shared..... its name was hope. They were waiting for the crowning.

She opened her eyes.

"Is it over?"

"Almost, Mon-chan. We just need to help the dragon and then .... "

She kept one hand in that of Mondo and contacted Arash, asking him for directions, sharing with him the information the Dryad's Children provided. When she received his answer, it wasn't a happy one, but not a very sad one either. They wouldn't be able to save the dragon's life, but there was another way to preserve it.

Rebirth. In tandem with her thoughts, Mondo called forth energy from the ground.

Where Rokuna's pillar of light had been now was a spiraling pillar of darkness. It fed the dragon with the energy it needed while the light Rokuna had given the Dryad's Children healed the dragon in the same process.

The Children started to move in unison once more and Rokuna tried to remember what it felt like months ago, within the Terror Dragon. Responding to her memory now, the dragon itself started to form its makeshift 'womb'.

She let go of Mondo's hand and placed her hands on the dragon's skin. Inside she could feel the healed essence of the dragon being severed into a new being, blood of the same blood but an untouched spirit and soul. Under the instincts of the Dryads, new life was born of a creature that only was meant to exist once. Simultaneously she felt every cell of its being die quietly as they pulled the Green Wind away from it, instead granting it to the newborn.

Now, Rokuna's hands pushed through the skin and she reached into the gradually disintegrating dragon's head. Out she pulled a tinny little blob, small enough to fit in her hands.

It unfolded to reveal a short stumpy neck with a closed eye and pudgy multi-feeted legs, all in all a miniature version of the Terror Dragon with a healthy dose of cute, in some opinions. Certainly not Rokuna's. Aesthetically, she found it awkward at best, but emotionally .... it was adorable.

"Hey little one?"

She held it close to her, innocence was something she had lost but still loved in other things. Mondo reached out and petted it, causing the cub a soft tickle.

"Its calling for a master." Rokuna whispered.

She looked up through the broken ceiling. There, far above, Zaha and Shiru still fought off the Praetorians, who had only their orders of Malakoda and cared not the attacks had ceased. Following her gaze, Mondo remarked :

"But he doesn't want to be the Guardian of the Darkness."

"That's because he is afraid of himself, but he cares too much to ignore that they need help, just like he did. He won't deny them." Rokuna said softly. "Not now. We're kinda alike, you know."

He didn't exactly get it, but he trusted her.

"Alright. Me and Pegasus will cover you!"

Rokuna requested the help the Dryad's Children once more. Four faces separated from the ring that surrounded the two children. Once again they pulled parts of the surrounding world to them in order to form bodies, but this time not for the intent of destruction.

Mondo went ahead and guided Pegasus into creating a hurricane.

The angels caught onto the plan and stayed in the center, close to them, while the winds swept away their enemy. Said enemy would find their way back soon enough though. The two Praetorians were hardly like the demons that inhabited the city, but much like Malakoda, vaguely skeletal, stonelike and biomechanic in appearance, neither wind nor fire did much to them. Heck, Zaha had only tried keeping them at bay and already looked more beat up while they were unscathed.

"- _Mondo, what is that about? Shouldn't we be leaving?_ -" Zaha asked.

"- _We're gonna have to proof something first._ -" was the answer.

"Proof something?" he muttered.

"- _To Pandæmonium. _-"

At that moment, Rokuna rose to the air on a platform similar to what Saki could create from roots, except hers was made of earth, water and stray plants, some bones here and there. Four dryad faces led the way, curling up like solid fog, almost like petals on a flower .... a rather morbid flower, though.

Zaha spotted the dragon cub her her arms. As she halted before him, she held it out.

"Zaha, will you please take care of it?" she asked with a light tone that he hadn't heard from her in months.

Reminiscent of that desert beneath the war an even light came from all horizons and like that day, he did not hesitate long before he accepted the invitation.

There, Zaha had lost himself. Now he reached out his burned left hand, he took up a part of what he had lost there.

Rokuna carefully set the cub in his hand and looked him in the eyes, giving him a grateful nod. Around them, the faces formed an asymmetrical circle and closed their eyes in a respectful bow. As they did so, his burned hand was healed and violet rokumon flashed from the cub as it accepted its new master. The circle faded away quickly, but the city had many long distance eyes to see. From all around in the city, a loud cheering erupted. Theta had been right, so. Now they saw no longer enemies threatening to destroy them, they saw the children of the Saint Star Dragon appoint a new Demon Guardian.

The Praetorians too held off their renewed charge, confused at the meaning of the cheers. But they knew who the child was, who the fallen angel was and what that dragon meant. And so did the lord Pandæmonium himself. He ordered them to remain back.

"What do they say?" Zaha asked uneasily as he looked around at the distant crowds.

"They praise your choice, Zahariel." Rokuna said happily.

This surprised him.

"You know my full name? Did I tell you?"

"Only indirectly, but we know that name on our Earth. In Hebrew, it means _Brightness of God_, the name of the angel said to aid in resisting temptation. I think you deserve that name. Thank you for helping me return to myself."

**· · · · · · ·**

_"Adara .... Kadara .... Buu!"_

Set for their last mission in Kharon, Mondo and Rokuna merged with the young Dread Dragon.

As they had hoped, Kharon's system seamlessly hooked into the genetic coding of the dragon cub. A chaotic sea of information stood at their service, together they faced it down.

First they tore away the anti-gate code, then they called forth the information regarding the prisoners and transferred the Names they found to a line of crystal spheres.

There weren't many left alive, but they did what they could for the remainder. Angels had come once more and various summoners were prepared for the heavy task. They no longer needed to build full camp to catch up the prisoners, though. The Forest and Wave Angels had arranged a healing lake in an area far off, there the ill and injured were teleported for care, till they had homes to return to.

An exception existed for some of the demons and those aligned to the dark element. Pandæmonium had sent his Praetorians, who led a whole group of equally solemn faced demons. Their organization was far superior to what the previous missions to Kharon's labyrinths had seen, they quickly scourged the prisons and efficiently divided the prisoners to the right gateways in accordance to their elements.

Those they recognized from the families of their own cities were brought to the city of Pandæmonium at once and they spoke no more than absolutely necessary to anyone. Perhaps they had also been ordered to measure the atmosphere too, they kept a close eye on Zaha as he guarded the dragon cub. But the Blackwinged Angel never made a claim to the throne of Kharon.

There were three labyrinths left, once all these had been unlocked Mondo and Rokuna emerged from the dragon cub and promptly collapsed. While the circle around them faded, many gates all over the plain opened and closed. Many passed through, several died of exhaustion, all blinked out of existence. Rokuna simply held onto Mondo's hand as they caught their breath and waited it out.

"Theta-san!" Mondo suddenly called. He had spotted her amidst some of the workers from Pandæmonium.

The homunculus paused and cast a glance at one of the larger demons in her company. He nodded and she darted over to the children.

"Ai weird folk!" she greeted them.

"You're okay! What are you doing here?" Mondo asked, happy to see her in healthy.

"Community service. Malakoda said that I am in no way going to be pardoned from my crimes, but since I calmed down the crowd before they completely drove greeny insane, well, I don't have to spend it in jail. Still stuck like this for a few centuries though and I lost my entire collection! On the nice side, they're helping me regrow my wings. Oh, flying would get boring and I'd go back to collecting curiosities, but it is rather fitting that I'd be one myself!"

She half turned, showing them two brown stumps on her back.

"Awesome! I mean, bummer about your collection .... but you kinda did have it coming." Mondo remarked. "Which reminds me, I think we should also do something for Pandæmonium in return for the trouble we caused!"

"They don't trust you for a dime." Theta said as she rolled her eyes. "Good luck getting them to accept any help!"

"I'm sure they will!"

Theta shook her head. "Ai ai, the idealism really can't be beat out of you, can it?"

Rokuna shook her head resolutely. "We are being _realistic_! It would be crazy to bridge our two worlds while the demonic and heavenly realms are in nothing but a cease of fire. Our world is very prejudiced too, you know."

"Yes, so we need both of them in absolute harmony before we even consider introducing the two worlds to each other. So we'll be starting small and befriending Pandæmonium is our first step!" Mondo added.

"Small, eh?"

Zaha had sat down a little distance from them and watched them chat with Theta. Doubts still spun through his head, but he didn't listen very intensely anymore. He was more concerned with what was going to happen to the children at this point.

How odd, actually, he found himself considering them friends, but couldn't really tell what that encompassed. Then again, his friendship with Lark hadn't been particularly complicated either, it just meant simple things that had carried a lot of expectations. In retrospect, so simple it didn't seem.

"This is just the start, isn't it, Zaha?" Looking aside he found Ruth. The usually cheerful imp hadn't been so cheerful over the past few days, and now he looked downright serious.

"I guess so." he said.

"Well, this whole thing here is nearly done in any case. The folk of Pandæmonium say we can leave."

Zaha looked around. Indeed, the servants of Pandæmonium were starting to thin and all around on the desert the lines before the greater gates became less and less. The summoners started to store their spheres too. This had taken a welcome short amount of time, though when it came to the victims, that didn't do much on the overall scape of things.

"Alright, Ruth."

He stood up and walked to the children.

"Rokuna, is it truly empty?" he asked.

She folded her hands and concentrated for a long time, then opened her eyes again. "It is."

"Alright. Then I will be doing this for the last time."

Mondo helped Rokuna up and they said goodbye to Theta, who quickly rejoined her supervisors. The children on their turn followed Ruth to a nearby gate.

Zaha rose to the sky and waited for Rokuna to tell him all was clear; this didn't take long either.

Once again though, she told him he had company. He hadn't even spotted them, against the dark gray clouds, but now he looked over, he recognized one of them as a Praetorian he had fought in the city of Pandæmonium, the other was a stranger.

They said nothing, but signed they would take care of the two labyrinths, Zaha was to deal with the third.

So, the desert of Kharon burned black for the last time.

**· · · · · · ·**

A cold evening two days later, the stage was far away in the deepest forests of the Earth Realm.

Autumn had painted the forests in browns and reds and the first stars appeared in the purple dusk. In an already shadowed meadow stood two girls, one short and green haired and one black haired with ten green wings breaking through her curls. They softly hummed a wordless song, one voice inexperienced, another skilled. So they spoke to the lifeforce of the forest in a ritual to prove their benevolence.

More than a few birds had gathered in curiosity and here and there a fairy or unfamiliar dryad, but the one they sought was shy to show herself. Uncertainty however did not have a long hold on her and the lonely dryad eventually appeared from the undergrowth. She still bore the scars of her imprisonment, lacking the vitality of the other dryads. A cloud of dust with hollow eyes, lonely and not serene as she ought to be.

Rokuna no longer hummed, instead carefully approached the dryad, hoping not to startle her. Just a few steps while telepathically reaching out to her. She was recognized.

"- _Lady dryad, I have a request for you. _-" she said.

The answer was wordless curiosity and great distrust.

The Forest Angel now called forth a green circle, from hence the dryad's children slowly crept. In their fully condensed state they were only a few meters in span, still they soon filled nearly the entire meadow. Fearfully the forest life drew back, including the mother.

"- _Please, don't go. I promised you that I would find your daughter .... and ..... well .... _"

Rokuna looked over the many faces. The hive had become much calmer, lost its perpetual acidity since she had inadvertently healed them and they carried an affinity to the holy element now, but still, they were not quite natural. They might never be.

"- _They aren't really the daughter you remember and very little of your blood is in them. Still, would you take care of them, please? They are children who need a mother and you are the only dryad here to know what it is like to have lived in the Labyrinths, so you would understand. -_"

The broken dryad lingered for a moment, fearfully beholding the many faces behind Rokuna. Then she slowly pulled back.

The Forest Angel was disappointed and continued her hum in a softer tone, but Rokuna made a decision. Maybe it was a test for herself, somewhere, but first and foremost she simply wanted a home for her new friends. She would not cross the line.

Gently she linked the dryad to the children, ever so slightly, but forced nothing onto her mind.

"- _It is your choice, but allow me to show you something you can't see._ -"

Rejection were her initial answer, but spiritually blind the dryad was not. Fear made way in the appearance of compassion.

Rokuna breathed out in relief as thin hands appeared from the now expanding dryad. At the same time, the many children somehow shrunk in size. The trees started to whisper and the other dryads fell into the clearing to reach out as well. The sky soon was hidden in their cloudlike, glowing forms and Rokuna looked up in wonder. It may have been a dance if it wasn't their natural movement already.

The mother started to lead the children into the forest. Other dryads assisted her, smoothing them into a more natural form until they merged into the trees. And then, there only was that forest.

"Shall we go?" the angel asked once they were entirely alone.

"No. I'll think I'll get another ride." Rokuna said as she turned her face to the west. The Forest Angel followed her gaze and saw through the trees.

"Oh? Well then, I will be on my way." She blinked an eye and then sparkled into nothingness.

Rokuna made her way to a thicker part of the forest, here several tall trees peeked out above the roof of leaves. Zaha leaned against the bark of one such tree, high in the crown where he could see across the land yet hidden by the shadows. Rokuna climbed it and saw down on one of the branches close to him.

"Hey, Zaha."

His usual, wordless greeting, he raised his hand and then looked ahead again.

"How are they doing?" he asked.

"Well enough to survive. I hope soon they will integrate into the natural world, but I guess they'll never completely be dryads."

"And how are you doing?"

"Well .... " she shrugged tiredly. "I'm going to face my role as the Eyes of the Saint Star Dragon, at Mondo's side."

He didn't say it out loud, but he expected her to understand what he felt about this all. She agreed.

"Mon Colle Knights, Saint Star Children, Black Winged Angel, Guardian of Darkness, Saviors of the Six Gates Universe ..... they expect a lot of us. But I'm still just a little girl and you're only an angel without heaven." she mused.

"And you screwed up, too."

Now it was her turn to be silent.

"Then again, so did I." Zaha continued. "So I'm not going to tell you that it wasn't your fault, that you just got carried away .... cause it _is _your fault. You should've confronted yourself much earlier."

"I know." she said sadly. "I can't become arrogant, can't become afraid, can't become sad, can become angry at myself but can't rage too much at others, and I can't stop feeling either. And .... I don't know whether I'm a murderer or not. But I think I'm going to find out in the future."

Murderer? A killer, certainly.

He didn't know either. In fits of rage he had burned forests and surely lives had been lost there, but like her he had never stood before anyone and wished their death, let alone carried it through.

This topic was getting too haunting for this beautiful evening, or rather, this early night.

"You know, Zaha? I think I'm happy, actually. How many people live their lives locked into a pattern they cannot escape, no matter how much they would like to have the power to change the world? But it's the sort of happiness that drives people to sorrow because they want to share it."

"That's .... an interesting way of seeing your fate." He didn't sound completely convinced.

"Fate? I doubt it. We discussed it with Namiko-sensei. She agrees .... if I were to get into a mindset like in Pandæmonium back in our world .... if I were to lose myself again, the people there wouldn't be able to deal with it. So, we're going to be living in Rokumon Sekai for the time being and so I can concentrate on whatever my role will be."

"This better not mean I'm going to have to cover you two all the time." Zaha smirked. "I'm not a babysitter."

"Sometimes you're actually a mildly funny guy." Rokuna chuckled.

There, that _'you are insane' _type of expression again. She answered with silent glee. He sighed exasperated, but then suddenly said :

"It's a whole lot easier having a conversation like this."

Now she laughed for real. "I'm really glad you think like that. Many people at my new school are already paranoid about whether or not I'm constantly reading their secret thoughts."

Then she remembered something.

"So .... was it just the lightning or did you actually have cotton candy pink hair in your holy form?"

While Rokumon Sekai lacked the consensus of pink being a weak color, at most seeing it as a color of daytime, he caught on quick enough when she sent him a few mental image of a certain twirly candy sold at carnivals in her universe and how much of a joke he could be when that was known.

"Oh crap, what the heck is that? People eat that? .... Are you going to tell anyone?"

"My lips are sealed." she vowed solemnly, but then added with a kitty smile : "Unless off course it becomes vital for your well being that everyone knows you looked like a candy blob."

He needed no further hint to understand what event she was referring to. Softly he hit the back of her head with two fingers, she still nearly topped over.

"Hey!" Glaring, she tried to hit him back but he intercepted her hit easily.

"You do understand this increases the chance of me finding that necessity somewhere, ne?" she said as she rubbed her hand that had collided painfully with his arm.

"You little witch." he grinned.

"Oh, I'll be more than a little witch soon. I might just be the Occasionally Wicked Witch. So you watch out."

"Maybe." Zaha dropped off of his branch and spread his wings, hovering with his back towards Rokuna.

As he turned his head over his shoulder, he said : "Does that threat go to the point I can't afford to safely give you a lift back?"

"Maybe." She took hold of the encasing where his wings melted into his back and he leveled forward so she could sit on it. Flying all the way back would certainly take longer than simply passing through a gate, but it was a beautiful young night. Neither minded.

"This is going to go very fast." he warned.

"I'm not that much of an ordinary 11 year old, I won't fall!" she said with a mock insulted voice.

So he took off. As Rokuna leaned forward and held into the biomechanic wings, she looked past his red hair and horns to the similarly red-brown forest. There she could feel a lively congregation whirling around, full of uncomplicated joy. A welcoming dance to the Dryad's Children and their first lesson on how they would live there.

"You know, .... maybe I'll give my mother a call before we leave Isekai." she said.

**· · · · · · ·**


End file.
